Charles Munger is *97* years old. Harvard Law School didn't allow women during the time he attended it. To quote John Mulaney, you shouldn't be allowed to order for the table if you're about to leave the restaurant!
@@sandwicheman9772 they're highlighting how old the man is and how he grew up in what could be considered multiple eras in the past, and how that would impact his views on what should and shouldn't be acceptable for human treatment.
@@sandwicheman9772 I mean partially because he's designing on behalf of a gender he never even interacted with at his college, and partially because it shows that he's so old (and also so rich and out of touch) that he'd have no idea what the demands of a student in 2021 are. It concerns me that you can't understand such a basic point. Feels like you'd say 2+2=5
The fact that Munger will only pay if his design is used is so telling. He doesn't care about providing housing or anything like that he just wants to cosplay as an architect and he doesn't care about how others will be affected.
100% this is exactly what is going on. I say, if he wants that kind of power he should have to pay for the whole thing himself. Not a measly 12.5% Especially when changing the design could save more than that amount.
Cosplaying as someone with an actual job is what all billionaires do, Elon Musk cosplays as Tony Stark on Twitter, Jeff Bezos cosplays as Lex Luther in space, paid for by worker exploitation.
@@gateauxq4604 the building doesn’t exist yet so of course there are no quotes, I hope there are never any quotes because the building should never be built
Hi, Architect student here, this building literally looks like something your teacher would hand you the plan from and say "alright, for this unit, I want you to list all the problems with it, how you would improve it, and then redraw the plan into something livable". Like, there is SO, SO many things wrong with it. Even if we ignore the whole "no windows so people will feel bad" aspect.
Pretty pretty please tell me as many of the things wrong with it as you have time to list! I can guess at some of them, but I'm not an architecture student so I'm really really curious what the full laundry list is :)
@@Sandra_Fnot exactly a laundry list, it's teally just one big environmental uh-oh. architecture students are learning about a thing called the 2030 project because it's what they want the next generation to focus on. A lot of carbon emissions come from builds, and the goal of the 2030 project is to make buildings either net zero (produce as much electricity as they use) or net positive (produce more electricity than they use). An important part of this is making buildings in such a way that you decrease the amount of energy needed to inhabit it, and windows are like, the single most important part of that process. No windows means that 1) students will have to use electric lighting as they have no natural light 2) students will have to rely more on air con for heating and cooling since they can't get natural heat from the sun through the window, nor cold air from the breeze outside Then there's the general "being in a dorm with no windows isn't nice for the inhabitants as lack of natural light makes you grumpy. I guess what I'd do to fix it, is instead of it being like. [][][][] [][][][] I'd break it up like [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] So it's four buildings instead of 1. TLDR: Not having enough windows can make a building worse for the environment and that's not something we need right now.
@@lunammoon8503 Thanks for the reply! Definitely makes sense laid out like that. Interesting just how many positive knock-on effects there are from natural light.
You are wrong about the environmental aspect. Modular/Pod construction is better for the environment. Just the delivery alone is 90% reduced emissions. Not to mention the method of construction is a huge reduction of waste and emissions from transport to the landfill. Maybe change schools?
@@DarkGloComics Maybe reply to other people as if you believe there's a human on the other end. Even if you feel that there's an error to correct, there's no reason to be a jerk.
Exits almost didn't make it in! In the original plans, dorm rooms were going to be build *around* the students. Who needs doors when you have, um, lamps...and a chair...and a...chair?
It’s almost like architects go through 6 years of schooling plus more for accreditation/licensure for a REASON Horrible floor plan aside, any potential psychological effects of this building NEED to be considered ESPECIALLY when designing for vulnerable group of users (i.e. students) My interior design degree is crying screaming & throwing up rn
Seriously. How much of a bloated, cocky billionaire do you have to be to say "You can have my money, but only if you let me play architect. Training? No, I don't have any. Why do you ask?"
"If you maximize the light, you get fewer people in the building." You also get fewer people in the building if the building is an insufferable hellscape
When I play the sims, sometimes I just build a 3x4 room with whatever's the smallest item that can meet all of a sim's needs (so no bed, just a coffee machine), bc sims aren't human so they'll be fine living in a windowless box crammed with furniture. This very much has the same energy except Munger doesn't seem to know that students are humans
Indeed, he forgot the HUMAN factor. There are so many efficient designs that don't work because humans inherently don't like to be treated like robots.
I'm an architecture enthusiast, and I would like to add to that by saying holy shit of God, how does V's megabuilding in Cyberpunk 2077 seem less oppressive than this _despite being designed to feel oppressive_
This design makes me glad to live in my state. Legally, you cannot sell a space as a bedroom if it doesn't have a window large enough for an adult of average height and weight to escape per state fire code. (Indiana state fire code) It also has to have a closet and ,"breathable " air circulation.
@@Mecharnie_Dobbs I think the fire evacuation plan is to get to the nearest staircase but if you're stuck in your room there's fire ladders that collapse to the size of a pillow and reach about 10ft down. From there you can either jump down safely or climb down the ladder when the fire department responds
In my state (Minnesota) you can legally have a bedroom without an egress window if there is a proper exit strategy and a fire sprinkler in the bedroom. I know because my room does not have a window and it fucking sucks ass.
The fact that this 97 year old billionaire refuses to give any money to this project unless his design plans are followed to a T... It's just batshit insane. The UC System has been struggling to find the funds to build suitable housing for students and along comes this almost 100 year old billionaire who says "I'll give you millions of dollars but only if you let me play pretend as an architect 🙂" Absolutely insane
Why? I pay only for what I want to pay for. I like his idea. I've lived in similar accommodation and loved it, actually. It's a temporary living situation. You need just enough space to sleep, eat and study. It really does work and dividing it into smaller 8 person unit is great - that's exactly how I lived. An 8 person apartment in a dorm building. I literally loved it!
@@AnHeC there are only two doors in the entire building, and with a bunch of college kids with microwaves they’re basically begging for a Triangle Shirtwaist factory 2.0. That is an OSHA department worker’s worst nightmare.
I am a current student, typing this in my dorm. This design is INHUMANE. Before coming to school, I lived in a room with no natural light for four years (a house addition that was added 'behind' my room before we moved there). I didn't think it was a big deal at the time. Now I can't stand being in a room with the overhead light on. It actually gives me anxiety. My friends think I'm crazy when I turn out all the lights and open the damn windows. I am now starting to realize that I might have experienced white room torture, and these designs are even worse than what I experienced. At least in my old house, I could go one room over and experience the sun, these dorms are nightmarish. My second relevant experience was my freshman dorm, which was a single in an old building. It was about the size of the bedrooms in this monster dorm, but was longer and slimmer, so slim that the bed could only be placed in one spot. To make it worse, I was on the top floor and we had dormer windows so only about 2/3 of my space was usable. I lofted my bed and put the desk and drawers underneath. I don't think I was damaged by this room. We had natural light, a decent view, and I don't NEED a lot of space. But I had to turn to the side to get past the bed because it was too close to the closet. It is a suitable amount of space for short term living. Definitely no longer than a year. Not every dorm needs to be amazing, but they have to have the minimum space and light to make life there worth living. It will cost more, take up more room, and house less students, but THIS is unacceptable and literal torture that will follow these kids for years. Also, I am VERY concerned about safety. 4000 people escaping out of how many staircases???
Not super relevant, but this comment reminded me that my bedroom in my early teens was also super tight. I had space for a bed, a closet, and a desk, but no space to actually put a chair in front of the desk, so I ended up always using the living room table to do any homework, etc. The desk in my room was basically just used as a place to stack more of my stuff (storage). The closet door also couldn't open fully without hitting the bed. Anyway, it was my choice though. When we moved into the house, I chose that room as my bedroom, because I liked the location and the window/door that led straight outside, so I didn't need to go through the hallway/living room to get outside. (And I was always in-and-out because our dogs weren't allowed indoors, so this saved me a lot of time.) I could have had a more roomy bedroom if I'd wanted to. I think it makes a huge difference if you're forced to live in a tiny room, vs when you have the choice.
I don't disagree but I have to wonder what people think of military housing then? Because by the standards of some of the places I was stationed, these rooms are practically luxurious. Don't even get me started on quarters aboard a ship.
Yeah like I obviously get that its california so its a bit different, but I have TERRIBLE seasonal depression, and when I was in hs, even despite the classrooms having windows, it was so overwhelming. Something about man-made light is just really uncomfortable for me. Especially if its the kind that's pre-installed into the ceiling, which I would assume these are. Gives me the shivers just thinking about it. Do NOT take advantage of sunlight
I lived for a couple of years on a small room with a small window and no direct light and now I never have the overhead light on even at night, I rely on indirectly placed bulbs and lamps. hadn't ever made the connection...
imagine how messed up student's internal clocks would become going to bed and waking up in pitch black rooms and sharing two showers and bathrooms and one kitchen with eight people sounds like hell on earth, the funk after just a month...who would even want to clean those 😭
This was literally my life. Lived in a 'den' because they couldn't legally call it a bedroom. Hotbox, no windows, no lockable door, 2 bathrooms for 7 people and a shared floor kitchen
my current apartment gets very little light in the bedrooms and the back one did in fact fuck up my sleep schedule so bad i was going to bed at 4 and waking up really late on the regular. i’ve since moved to the other room with more light, but it’s not exactly better. hopefully i’ll be moving to a brownstone next year i fucking hate this apartment lol
I can tell you two things. 1) If he submitted this plan for a prison it would be immediately denied because it doesn’t meet minimum living space requirement rights that American inmates have. Evidently, non-incarcerated students do not have the same rights. 2) rich people saying they will only donate if their plans for torturous dorms are implemented is not at new thing. My school accepted money from one of them, and it was so bad they tried to mandate people live in it and they got sued over it.
Funny thing is, Munger is probably one of those people that's horrified by the mention of socialized anything, and yet this looks like the sort of thing you'd see in the Soviet Union. It's probably worse, even.
What regulations for prisons would they be violating? I’m thinking of the large communal sleeping spaces that the prisons I’ve seen have. Less space and privacy than this building but maybe more natural light, is that it? (Not defending the building at all, genuinely curious because I don’t know what the requirements are for prisons!)
@pipitameruje Gulags were worse but the actual apartament complexes were (and still are) luxurious in comparison There're many things I don't like about them but at least they weren't a result of late capitalist hell
They could build around a courtyard to ensure everyone has a window for SAFETY and natural lighting and fresh air. The design of the “houses” is not bad, it’s the fact that they’re putting 4500 people in one massive building.
Not only that fire escapes and escape exits from the building. There is a specific set of rules architecture follows. This feels like a prison or a real dark elementary school feeling.
@@victorlannister5606 you mean how new schools are being built as panopticon layouts? On UA-cam they had a video on the new Sandy hook elementary layout, I can't find it anymore so they must have taken it down. But it had the panopticon with a guard in a tower and a remote guard with controls of the campus. In the video is showcased that the different sections of hallways had the ability to be shut down and GASSED.
@@privateemail9755 ohh wait jacob geller had a video that covered that! maybe that's what you're thinking of or maybe he also took inspo from that vid idk. his vid is called spaces designed for violence i think. this definitely fits haha
The problem with pod style buildings is they never get updates or actually make use of the supposed benefits of pod design: that a pod can be replaced when needed. The Contemporary resort at Disney World was designed as pods… the whole building settled and locked the pods into place, so they had to do refurbs in the “traditional” manner. The Nagkin Capsule tower in Japan also was built with the understanding they’d replace and redesign units as needed… it never happened because if you needed to replace a unit on the 3rd floor, you’d have to displace residents on the 10 floors above it and no one would allow it. So basically his “good idea” has been tried before and didn’t work, no matter how much of a Harry Potter coating he tries to put on it by calling the pods Houses.
The other point of pod (that actually works) is building small stable units in places where getting construction to the location would be expensive and un weildy. But yeah pods are not as useful as prefab slabs that do most of the same things without dumb promises
Prefab is a good construction method for this case. It promote fast construction that makes China 1 month apartment a possibility. But viable longetivity might be questionable. But the fundamental design error make this dorm into failure.
I thought about the Japanese capsule tower too. The tower was actually a pretty cool, if totally misguided idea. Some of those pods people decorated to their liking were so fun and unique. The whole building had a really neat retro-futuristic feel to it and its a real piece of architecture history. Its just such a shame it became so unsafe and can't even be preserved for the historical value.
Natural light is sooo important. My college has made the effort to make sure every dorm room has a window. My college used to have dorms that were underground/basement level and had no natural lighting/windows. The students there became incredibly depressed and mentally ill. They had to shut and close them off. Now they’re called the suicide suits
Indeed, that is the bad stuff that can happen. Some places are not nice to life, but if you got no actual sunlight during the day.. it gets a lot worse.
The more i think about how my junior year in college was the most depressed I’ve ever been in my life and at the time I was living in a basement unit with only a sliver of a window that started on the grass. Funny how things kinda click Im hindsight 😭
I don’t like windows, they make me uncomfortable probably due to watching way too many horror story as a child that involves creatures looking through windows, but I also spend atleast half my day actually outside and 25% of it in my living room and have Multiple planted tanks. Speaking of horror stories I think this is actually modeled after one since it feels familiar.
University housing is such a major issue! My little brother goes to UCSB and lived in a triple (3 person room) his freshman year - imagine the smallest possible room that can fit some bunk beds, desks, and closets, with basically no standing room left. Idk how he handled that! And again the cost to live in a crowded room like that, which was considered the “cheapest” option ?? Absolutely wild I had a pretty small dorm room when I studied abroad in France. Had my bed, desk, closet, and a decent amount of storage. Plus my own tiny bathroom, like an airplane bathroom with a shower overhead lmao. But most importantly, there was a big beautiful window! I really enjoyed having my own space, even if it was small, and truly the window made all the difference. Without it I think I would have been miserable in there. All this to say, there definitely are efficient ways to build student housing that prioritize comfort, privacy, and safety. This Munger design is NOT it. Wish universities would stop putting students in this impossible position; either you have no housing or you have to pay almost 20k for part of a room with up to 2-3 roommates.
In Sweden it a bedroom NEEDS to have a window because it is considered a room where people don't only spend time in occasionally which means it needs good ventilation, access to daylight and act as viable fire escape.
Same in the US. It can’t legally be classified as a bedroom without a window so idk what that dude was thinking with this design. Not to mention all the fire safety issues this design has.
Soooo, I can't be the only person who thinks the "fitness center" and other amenities are definitely not going to be scaled to the sheer amount of people they're supposedly stuffing into that one building? And yeah, that's a building that should never pass any type of approval because it would be a total hazard. Also, I lived in a reasonably big dorm, like.. 400-ish people in the building, 12 per dorm, and the noise was *terrible*.
I looked at Munger's other student housing. Generally the students like it: lots of space, everyone gets their own bathroom and there's two of everything in the kitchen (ie stove, dishwasher, fridge) so there's enough things for everyone to use, and there's 2 living rooms. Biggest complaint (I mean, duh) is that there's no windows in the bedrooms. Students had to make it through the pandemic in those rooms :( Now, he's removed both living rooms and halved the space of the bedrooms, and on top of that, narrowed the common area as slim as possible. I wouldn't call that an improvement. And worst of all, at least the other rooms had windows in the common area- he got rid of that too. Honestly, I'd REALLY like for him to tell me just one thing he's improved on here, other than that he can fit more people in now
@@basswolf4749 It's definitely a Pod hotel. I wasn't aware he built these in Michigan, but makes sense. The thing is I can't see the city council or college approving this building unless he pays them off. We have way more regulations needed out here in California.
The other dorm is for graduate students, so it can't be super horrible like the UCSB dorm. The question I have is if you want to house more students, why not build the building higher? Like make it 15 stories high or high enough to give each student some space. I guess that would be more expensive though, so the students are going to have to live in a low security prison instead.
he could have literally just deigned the building with internal courtyards??!?!!! Like, put all the amenities on the first two floors with internal courtyards that have sky-access, and then build the "Houses" around a central area with a view outside
Thats what houses do, even if you dont get even light in well, it is fresh air. Th lighning copuld be considered but a window, is impoerant. Andhouses have oftten ouryards fro exat that reason, even if yo sun, youcan have , a window.
It's insane to me that people aren't even considering the fact you'd have 7 roommates... it's already hard for many people to get along with 1 or 3, much less 7??
I’d posit that it’s not that bad for certain peaple I personally would sooner lay my lick over a lit stove for 7 day than sown an hour in a room with 7 peaple loveing with 7 folk for years in a connected grid of 8 padded cells sounds like my worst nightmare
Even with good roommates in a larger space, that would be hard. And compatible roommates are hard to match together, let alone finding a group of eight.
They do have private rooms here at least, some dorms are still two people in a 10x10 and a bathroom shared with 16 people that has showers like a open locker room. And then no kitchen, but the campus had a dinning hall like cafeteria that was buffet style for all meals.
As someone currently in a dorm and keeps my window closed all the time, even I know not even having windows would be terrible. Also, my college kept talking about all the study rooms and computer labs we have when in reality most people like being able to stay in their rooms if there’s enough space to work. The only reason I’ve seen people leave is just because people are too loud sometimes
Yeah honestly most of the time I would do homework on my laptop while laying in bed. I really only left to eat, go to class, or hang out with friends. If I was working on a design project that required a lot of desk space, then I would go to the studio downstairs. My dorm was always quiet except for these two people that laughed really loudly.
You are the exception and your experiences are not universal. Also, even when your window is closed the glass provides a certain level of air and temperature exchange. They are designed to do exactly this. And unless you've tacked up light proofing as well as keeping it closed, even light that gets through closed blinds is of a vastly different quality than artificial light. But if you're doing that and getting little to no natural light, I have deep, deep concerns for your mental health.
as someone who has attended ucsb and lived in dorms there, i can attest to how students use the study spaces all the time. they are a great group study space, they have whiteboards & markers usually furnished by housing & student services. They're open so if you want light at night but don't want to disturb your roommates.
To be honest, the building can always be used as a Squid Game building. All joking aside, just imagine the power going out and there is no light anywhere, terrifying!
Well there really is a ton of rooms like this is Asia; living as an graduated adult also (w a kitchen next to the door and shared shower area). I went to uni in America but I had several friends w rooms like this in Uni in Japan and Korea.
the moment I saw those bedrooms in the middle of the plan, the alarm bells in my head went off. in the third year of my architecture program, we designed residential complexes in this same sort of unit style, and the second a critic saw a bedroom without a window, you'd get chewed out. I am utterly baffled as to how those bedrooms ever got planned, let alone proposed. also, the building strategy of off-site unit assembly helps shorten construction time and is actually pretty efficient and effective, but the amount of people they're cramming into each unit is utterly shameless. I am praying this nightmare doesn't get built.
@@serpentmaster1323 after a quick look at the plans, it looks like each apartment has 8 bedrooms, each at 10' x 7', totaling 560 sqft. the average private square footage a person is expected to have varies from person to person and from city to city, but the bare minimum is expected to be at about 120 sqft. already, we're struggling to fit just half the amount of students in that same space. (rounding down from 4.6 people, but obviously you can't have a sixth of a person (unless Munger is even more of a monster than we already knew)) and that's not even getting into the fact that, without some major rearranging, only 24 out of 504 bedrooms on each floor will have access to natural light. this is literally illegal in some cities. I'm not familiar with Santa Barbara's code, but in some cities a room that does not have a window cannot be legally called a bedroom. in terms of fixing this nightmare, this sort of interior-locked organization could be remedied by "light" stairwells, or essentially vertical corridors for skylights that could penetrate even the dead space in the middle of the project. it would be all indirect light, but it would technically be acceptable. however, that would, of course, take away a good chunk of precious square footage per floor. to summarize, without major design changes, easily only half the expected occupancy (so 2178 students) could humanely fit in these square footages. if natural light is factored in (which it should be), there'd have to be a central light stairwell in each apartment, with bedrooms branching off of it in order to have a window. that would lose more square footage than I care to calculate, but I imagine about 3-4 people could live somewhat comfortably in each apartment under these conditions.
Imagine being in the "stall" where you have two other "stalls" on each side of you. The noise would have to be wild. Also...speaking of stalls...birthing stalls for horses are actually bigger than the sleeping space they're talking about. And no a birthing stall is NOT gigantic. It's actually very hard to tell the difference between birthing & regular stalls unless you have a tape measure or work with both types of stalls. Point being!!! Horses have more accommodating conditions!
Things you need in an 8 person apartment: -Windows THAT OPEN -relaxation area WITHIN THE LIVING AREA (ie not a shared safe space down the hall, one in each apartment) -A kitchen that cannot be called a "kitchenette" -MORE THAN 2 BATHROOMS -EXTREMELY LOW RENT And ideally: -Easy and accessible personal space customization -Plenty of space for plants/Hypoallergenic plants provided
I love how they have room for a shit ton unnecessary amenities that will get unused by a ton of students but not enough space to let people have a freaking window. I highly advise looking at the proposal and see the mock ups of the different amenity areas. They're enormous. And they would definitely charge the students more than average and say that it's because of these amenities, a lot of which would need to be staffed to be used by the students.
Yes...this is how modern apartments are outside of colleges. Tiny, high-priced, but maximized use of space in the best areas with lots of amenities. And wouldn't'cha know?? Those are designed solely by architects--not billionaires! 😱😂😂😂
My school UBC, has something similar called nano suites; HOWEVER, these suites has Murphy beds and large windows as well as a private bathroom so despite the small space, it’s more than liveable plus the rent is the cheapest on campus
a professor of mine showed us the plans for this in a lecture and, rightfully so, compared it to the breeding pods in the Matrix. he also assumed (or hoped) that they restructure the plans because the building as it is simply does not keep up with fire safety standards ANYWHERE in the world. also from a student perspective living in one of these rooms seems miserable. like you barely have room to put anything or move around AND you don't have a window?? my mental health would absolutely hit rock bottom. none of the common areas would be able to save that. none.
Everyone should understand why ventilation is a concern. It takes a ton of energy to get fresh, clean air into a building like this, which is absolutely required in order to help curb the spread of things like COVID and the Flu. While yes, you can technically fit a bunch of people in this building so the initial investment is minimized, the operation costs of such a building will be significantly higher than one with lots of windows in order to maintain liveable air quality. Or, what will more likely happen, the ventilation system will be nowhere near sufficient and respiratory diseases will spread like wildfire in the stale, soul crushing air.
He's far enough away from the possibility I'm sure he loves the idea of spartan living and considers milenials, gen x and whatever else exists too privileged while he, a chad ultra boomer babysat during the great depression.
This feels like a giant version of the fire-hazard house conversions that get built in “student ghettoes” in Canadian big cities. They take a single family home and turn it into 3-5 “apartments” with 5+ bedrooms each. The rooms are big enough for a twin bed and *maybe* a tiny desk or dresser; definitely not both. You end up with 20+ bedrooms on a plot of land that was designed for 4-5 max - and sometimes upwards of 30 people, since often student couples will share rooms. People have died in these apartments in the Toronto area because they’re too crowded, don’t have adequate windows, and are thus impossible to quickly escape when a fire breaks out.
THIS!! Also where I live they are trying to sell these dorm style buildings to ADULTS which is a complete nightmare when you're looking for apartments. NO ONE WANTS TO LIVE LIVE LIKE THIS!!!! Also, my building burned down and destroyed all my shit and killed my two cats. We were not students, just had the misfortune of renting downtown in a non luxury building.
Iirc it wasn’t uncommon for 3-4 people to share a single bedroom in the nearby (poorly built) apartments and houses when I was going there. It’s probably more common now than ever.
Here in my city they have neighborhoods like that too. I knew people in a big house with over a dozen people crammed in that shared rooms with bunk beds. There were even two kitchens. Overall it was kinda shit, and the area was notorious for robberies and crazy shit happening. And everyone accepted it because it was comparatively cheap, everyone is tired and focused on school, and no one lived there long enough to really make a fuss.
Is there anywhere I can read about this or maybe a video? It isn't as bad here yet but more and more young people can't afford their own apartments now here either so this will eventually happen here too I guess.
I lived in a similar condition for two years, albeit in a different country. The people behind this "apartments" prey on those who don't meet the requirements to rent (mainly inmigrants and students) and charge whatever they want for a place that is a fire and health hazard.
This building does not look like it accessible for disabled students. Even if it were a good building and a good place to live on campus, it likely would be able to accommodate those with a physical disability, especially if they need a wheelchair.
UC Santa Barbara is a very active school, in that skateboard and bike lanes are everywhere, surfing, hiking and other sports are easily accessible, the Rec Cen has a pool, rock climbing, weights, racquetball as well. BUT this means that an accident from doing said activities, speeding on a electronic scooter, or falling off a curb while drinking on the weekend easily incapacitates a formerly physical able person. Every quarter I was there, at least one student in any of my classes came in on crutches, with a cast, or with a brace because of temporary disability, I can’t imagine what it would be like for students that have a chronic or permanent disability trying to live there.
To meet building code, every living space must have 2 ways to get out in case of a fire. If there's just 1 door and no windows, you won't be able to get building permits, let alone insurance.
wait, it’s gets better. since 94% of rooms have artificial light and ventilation, the building would have to fully evaluate in the case of a power outage.
I'm glad you're talking about this! It's basically one giant fire safety hazard! You need a window in every bedroom in order to have to chances to escape in the event of a fire. This building spits in the face of the health and safety of the students who could live there.
Great point! When I lived in an area that had basements, I was explicitly told by the landlord that we were not allowed to use the basement bedroom as a bedroom because there is no fire escape Like what is this guy thinking? How would this ever pass a fire inspection? "I'll give you money to build dorms that nobody can legally live in" lmao
@@shelbyb9965 Exactly! At university, I lived in on-campus/university owned apartments. The apartment I lived in was 65-70% underground. (Basically the above ground portion was tall enough for windows.) We had one window in the living room, one in the first bedroom, and two in my bedroom. The windows were flush with the ground. The windows were smaller than the other apartments above us, but they were longer. In case of fire/I couldn't exit out the apartment door, I could've pushed a chair/my bed over to a window, broken the screen out, grabbed something to anchor into the ground/grabbed dirt, and hoisted myself out. In the few residence halls that had basements, all had ping pong tables, bathrooms, microwaves, desks, and plumbing in them. (Some had washers and dryers.) There would be no way that they could safely have bedrooms down there. I believe to qualify as a bedroom in most places, you need a window and a closet. I'm absolutely shocked that no organization has tried to slap a potential safety hazard on this project. Somewhere I saw that this could house 4,500 and would have 2 exits..... 2 exits for 4,500 students???? That's not safe at ALL. Heck, my HS has 750 students total and they required much more than 2 exists. The biggest residence hall at my Alma Mater I believe had 2 sets of double doors on each side of the building. So 8 exits total. Whoever gets assigned to the rooms furthest away from the windows/exit doors are absolutely screwed in the event of an emergency.
@@nerdoftheatre I can only imagine they think they're saving money by letting this guy pay for his own ego-stroking project. But if this place ever goes up in flames, they'll be paying for it many times over with all the lawsuits.
Well in most schools the windows don’t actually open all the way, so escaping from a fire that way wouldn’t actually work, but the fresh air and sunlight are so important when your living space is already really small.
I know dorms aren't exactly known for being spacious and wonderful but this feels like a post-apocalyptic fallout dorm and also like they're going to eventually have a very deadly fire season.
The first time there's any kind of maintenance issue it's going to instantly affect hundreds of students at the same time. Imagine a leak on the top floor. Imagine the horror of trying to deal with an infestation of ants, roaches, rats, mold, bedbugs etc. Imagine a medical emergency and the emt's have to get somewhere quickly. Plus not having natural sunlight is going to seriously f up people's natural biorhythms - imagine waking up in your pitch black room and finding out you overslept by hours.
As an architect in training, I literally physically recoiled when I saw the floor plans. I can’t believe this is actually getting built. I have no words for this.
Omg imagine the rooms on the perimeter being more expensive because they're the only ones that have natural light. "Prime Room with easy access to sunlight" lmao. Imagine those on the corners, "Deluxe Houses with windows on two sides" omg what a treat
What I don't understand is that with that layout it wouldn't even be that hard to give everyone a window. Literally just spread them out and put alleys i between each of the "houses." like windows don't have to have a nice view.
No no no. They must cram ever possible space with living spaces. More head in bed more profit. Wtf indeed a stupid excuse. They could also just put some of the amenities in the center space and living around it so at least they get light.
yeah, it could also have interior courtyards and light tubes to bring light and ventilation to the rooms in interior of the building, you don't have to make such a shitty to live in place.
If you noticed the blueprint, and the supposed 11 floors of this monstruosity, even with alleys between each row of houses, the windows would get barely any sunlight. And the way air circulates in "corridors" like those is not great for ventilation. On paper, it doesn't look hard. In the real world, it wouldn't be much of an improvement. Only a couple of rooms and maybe the kitchenette would have a window.
I'd rather share a somewhat small room with one person than a cursed tiny house with eight. Dorm life isn't great (my residence hall doesn't even have a community kitchen) but seeing this made me feel super lucky. At least we have windows and clearly marked fire exits.
My biggest issue with living in the dorms were that you pay a lot of money to share a room with someone. If you want a solo room then prepare to fork out even more money that you don't have. You have NO personal/private space. You better hope you get along with your room mate or else things will be either awkward or anxiety inducing. If you do get along with your room mate, it can be fun though. Either way, you could spend the same amount to live in a 2br 1bath apartment 5 min off campus (though there are a lot of those that are way overpriced as well). Right now I have my own room that is maybe around or a bit smaller than my dorm room. I have a kitchen now so I can go and buy food that you need a stove to make.
I wouldn't. I love the design and had a chance to live in a dorm like this. It was absolutely amazing! You have your own space and privacy. I can't express how many thousand times better it was compared to sharing a room with someone.
as someone who's lived in student apartments both with strangers and friends, bedrooms are where SO MUCH of your time is spent. even when it's a cohesive household, your room is Your Space. Especially if any of the residenrs have service animals or ESAs? There's just no space :/
THIS. I've lived with my best&closest friends and even then my room was My Space where I could get some down time, even if everyone in the house gets along perfectly fine, you need a SPACE for just you
@@notmocka tbh i don't think I'll ever see the day colleges actually consider wheelchair users when planning things. I catered a meeting on campus accessibility, where the big guest was an electric wheelchair user. the room booked had like, inch+ molding on the floor of the doorway??? and a single steep, crumbling ramp to even get that far :/
my older sister is currently staying in one of the dorms while she's attending UCSB (these dorms usually house 2 people but everyone's stuffed with 3 sometimes 4 people because the college, according to my sister, accepted too many applicants to the college so... fun times) and was telling me about this "mega dorm." Luckily she's graduating in June but still, that mega dorm is just so inhumane.
i feel like this whole building is one giant ADA violation like how is anyone supposed to navigate those rooms with a wheelchair. the lack of natural lighting within the dorms and rooms can really negatively impact the management of one's mental health and cause an increase in the severity one's symptoms. the fact that there is no way to get fresh air or real air circulation going means that people will very easily pass colds and such to one another, those with respiratory issues like asthma, etc will have a really hard time, and in my opinion i feel like whole building smell bad a lot because there is no fresh air coming in and for people with sensory sensitivities this whole place seems like it will a sensory overload nightmare i just can not see how this at the very least is not a total violation of the ADA (americans with disabilities act)
ADA violations rely on no accommodations being given. Most college dorms aren’t fit for a wheelchair user or other conditions, but will have a small amount of units that are accessible. Those are given to students who provide medical documentation stating what they need (and then sometimes any left over are given to RAs as a perk fo being an RA). So if someone has a medical need for access to fresh air, as long as the building has a single room with that, they’re fine. Or UCSB can place them in a different dorm building. Unfortunately this abomination isn’t illegal.
I really think whoever helped Munger with that wanted to test out Pod Hotels, but California has building regulations because of the fires and the earthquakes so it literally makes no sense they'd get this approved unless the city is like "sure let's risk kids lives" this isn't Michigan it's California it's completely different in terms of natural disasters.
@@TheRaquelephant wow I did not know that. I mean I was looking at the plans and it looked to me like it was lacking accommodations and like what seemed to logical violations. Also the negative impact of thr students mental health feels like a violation to me. But if none of that is actually protected or covered in the ADA then it just goes to show that the ADA needs updating and improving so that there are more protections in place. because this building is aleady a nightmarish hellscape before taking in to account the needs of students with disabilities, neurodivergent students, and/or student with mental illnesses.
@@kgal1298 yeah every time I look at the plans I'm left wondering what governmental body on federal or state level would allow this to be built. It seems like it is violating multiple acts, ordinances, and safety rules. It is one giant hazard essentially as far as I can tell and I'm not like an architect or an expert in safety stuff. I wonder if this was a Yale or Harvard would they pull a stunt like this? Where are the governmental bodies whose job it is to regulate these kinds of things? Also has any studies even been yet on what kind of environmental impact having this massive building being built would as well as the foot traffic going on? Like how much in an increase noise or light pollution or regular pollution will there be? How will impact the surrounding neighborhood and will that be a negative one? And if they have done those studies what were the results, that should be made public. This is just so baffling to me and it feels like there is a total lack of oversight and regulation and like they are willing to just put a bunch students' lives risk because profit.
Yea I am wheelchair-bound and I have mental struggles including depression and anxiety I wouldn't live there if I had a choice... And environments like that will literally just make everyone have cabin fever... Its just terrible
as a student in the uk, this is absolutely horrific. I can't believe that this design is even given the time of day. granted, I am an art student so my uni is very aware of the physiological needs of students, but there is still a decent standard of student living here. its almost as if architects go through YEARS of schooling before they're allowed to design anything
I’ve watched so many documentaries about how devastating human crushes can happen when there’s only one available/known exit during a panic. Two exits are obviously not enough for this many people.
“If I wouldn’t say it to your face, I wouldn’t say it in a video” is a concept that everyone needs to adopt on the internet It drives me insane that you are one of the first people i have seen that has said this. Thank you for having this philosophy
That’s my exact concern. Without windows it’d be incredibly difficult if not impossible for firefighters to access trapped students or even know where they are .
I did grad school at U of M and lived in munger graduate residences for 3 years. There were a total of 7 people including myself the layout was better than the one showing at 3:17 because when you walk into the suite you would have a very long hallway where all the rooms would be and then at the very end is where you would have the common space and so the rooms were relatively quiet since they were farther away from the common space. I chose to live at munger because it's relatively cheap compared to everywhere else rent was $950 when I first moved in and I didn't need to worry about furniture and any utilities so I think it was a great deal and I really liked my time there however the downside was not having a window. My sleep cycle was definitely affected and it was hard to wake up every day even if I got 8+ hours of sleep because with no window you're literally waking up in pitch darkness. The window rooms are only reserved for people who obtained a doctors note for having some kind of condition lets say like claustrophobia or anxiety and for all the RAs. But even then less than 19% of all the rooms in munger has windows so the window rooms were pretty limited in the first place. Most people invest in a sunlamp to kind of mimic waking up with natural light but it's not the same.
I appreciate hearing this perspective. Even though the U of M Munger housing still seems… not ideal as far as overall space for 7 full-grown adults, it still seems a hell of a lot better than the student storage bins being proposed for UCSB. If you feel like answering, how much of a difference do you feel like the common area in the unit made in your experience with the U of M housing? Because the common area in those floor plans looks much more open than the proposed UCSB plan and more comfortable. Not to say I think either is necessarily good. But I think it’s disgusting that the UCSB plan is being proposed as an “improved” version of where you stayed when the latter clearly seems to me to be better.
@@DeadMetaphors I'm not the person you replied to, but when I was in college I really didn't care about the common spaces at all. When I was in my dorm I was in my room, when I wasn't in my dorm (and not in class) I was going to club sport practices, activities, the library, meeting up for lunch/dinner, or hanging out at the student union. The only times I ever went to the common areas were when we had mandatory residence hall meetings, or the first couple of weeks when the RAs would have icebreaker-type games set up for people in the dorms because nobody really had friends yet. At least for bigger schools, there are so many activity/interest-based groups on campus that hanging out with people you didn't have much in common with except for living in the same dorm wasn't really a thing.
@@DeadMetaphors I definitely think the UCSB proposed building looks really bad and those bedrooms look even worse than ours. But the common area at our Munger building was very large and I've never heard a single person complain about living space there, only complaints of lack of windows, so I would say it is suitable for seven people. Also it wasn't like all 7 of us were in the same room at the same time because everybody had different schedules and busy with our own work so it wasn't like people had time every single day to watch Netflix or play video games like undergrad students. As for your question, I think the common area made a huge difference. There are a lot of international students that end up living in Munger and so you get to be roommates with a diverse group of people and I ended up making a lot of long-term friends just living in Munger. I think the pictures of munger are terrible at selling the place. Like at 16:12 that picture was taken before the building was finished like the coffee tables have a white marble top to them which was not present in the photo. Also the furniture layout in the photo is terrible and nobody kept it that way. We ended up putting the couch (not shown in the picture) and all the dark brown conference chairs facing the 85 inch flat screen TV and the dinner table and the chairs in front of where the smaller TV is. Since we did have a lot of space we actually hosted a decent amount of party / events for Michigan football games on Saturday, holiday themed parties, etc
$950 is way to much I also went to Michigan and graduated recently enough and paid $620 for off campus housing in a fairly large house with my own room quite close to campus. And that was the more expensive end.
I've lived in a window less room for about 2 years and holy shit that honestly made my depression so much worse. I can't imagine paying to live like that.
As someone who lived in the dorms all 4 years, I can say without a doubt that having natural light and fresh air is nessecary. Especially in the pandemic times where a student could be forced to Isolate in their dorm for up to 2 weeks. The fact that some billionaire with no training has been given the leeway to design a building because it's his money is ridiculous. Also, CNN ran an article a couple of days ago with a picture of the Michigan bedroom. 🤮
As someone who needs personal space and privacy, living in that tiny space with 7 other people would be a nightmare. I don't even like having one roommate. I saw a video tour of one of his other buildings and the common area was so messy with everyones coffee makers, blenders, water bottles and other junk. And that one was twice as large for the same number of people.
This building is designed like a prison. Each house is a cell block and each room a cell, with a communal space in the center. This plan litterally fits the design of prison *blocks to a T Edit for spelling
11:40 hi civil engineer here! The building pods off site part is modular engineering/construction and its not as concerning of a safety hazard as the reaction warrants lol but I totally get how insane that sounds as a way to build such a large dorm. It's not the most conventional construction method, especially for a project this large, but probably would help lessen the cost significantly with a (ridiculous) design that's this copy pasted. Modular design has a lot of benefits, but its really dependent on what's being built and in my professional opinion, this damn building should NOT be built smh
Yeah, I'm an engineer too. Modular design can be helpful and has its uses. The pods wouldn't be structural and could simplify labor costs and quality control. The lack of windows is concerning, but modular design isn't the problem here.
Modular design doesn't look like the problem here, at all. The module itself is crap, but you can totally do this with decent pods that actually allow for sunlight and ventilation, while providing an actual accomodation instead of a closet. I mean, move the kitchen and the living/dining room to an innner corner of the module, the shared bathrooms to the other inner corner, and leave the outer half ot the module for the bedrooms. Mirror this design horizontally and vertically, and bam, you have a four pod/housing unit per floor blueprint, that you can build around a central hallway, and actually stack into a decent 10 floor building. You probably can't however, cram 8 students in there. More like 4.
As someone who went to high school in a campus designed by a prison architect, even WE had windows. Albeit, not many, but still. You need at least SOME natural lighting in a school, but especially in a living space. This is a terrible design!
I can't imaging sharing a single fridge with more than 3 other people (4 total). Every dorm I was ever in had 1 fridge for four people, and it was almost always full.
If they actually go through with building these dystopian prison cells, I feel like one of the agreements should be that Munger HAS to live in one of these closet "bedrooms" for at LEAST a full semester without any access to the billionaire lifestyle. Basically live like a broke college student. Obviously that won't happen. However, what I'm concerned the most about, isn't that there doesn't seem to be many fire exits, natural light, or ventilation, but how despite lacking things that HAVE to be up to code, is that there's a chance he could brute force this into existence if the college agrees. He could potentially pay off people to allow for a building that actively dangers human life to be built. Also could someone have breathing problems if there isn't any ventilation in the bedrooms?
The bedrooms would, presumably, have vents for heating and air, but given how expensive it'd be to heat and cool the entire building I'd be surprised if the ventilation was any good at all
bro 8 people sharing 1 bathroom and shower?😭those mornings are gonna be ROUGH edit: wait maybe there's 2?? A communal bathroom with stalls would still be WAYYY more efficient for this many people living together imo
@@nellikorpi7937 agreed, but also the issue of 2 people showering will also technically occupy the toilets as well because of how its designed. Only 2 people can be in the bathroom at a time, compared to a possible 4, had they just made a communal bathroom with stalls
I'm getting a master's in mechanical engineering, and have one already in sustainable design from an architectural school, and the words "no natural light or ventilation" caused me to pause the video and go into a deep existential crisis. Building codes vary from state to state, but there's no way this is legitimately passing any kind of code for egress/outside air conditioning- especially with the quarantine requirements schools need to have for at least the next few years. These kids are going to have COVID and Legionnaire's at the same time, on top of the mental toll of such a poorly designed living space. ...Admittedly, my campus in DC used literal single-wide trailers on a quad to address campus housing shortages until they were banned within city limits. *Prefab/modular construction is getting pretty common though.
Imagine not providing the rooms a window? Imagine living there knowing it was approved for construction by a building official. At least it doesn't exist yet, but if it had gone under the internet's radar and they just paid off the official to approve of their building even though it is not up to code, I don't even wanna imagine that monstrosity. Not only is the lack of windows harmful to the students' physical and mental well-being (i.e. not having ample natural light and fresh air for ventilation reasons), this is also just a fire hazard waiting to happen. Even just considering that maybe flames won't spread to a certain area, smoke definitely will. Imagine dying of smoke inhalation, not of the actual fire itself. All because your room did not have windows. This is why you hire at least an engineer that can do the bare minimum of safety regulations.
Yeah and like how tf are they going to handle air circulation? Air circulation/ventilation takes up a HUGE amount of space in office buildings with windows in every room, it would have to be massive here
The dorms I lived in back in college had a center courtyard so that every bedroom had a window. The living/kitchenette/bathroom spaces were stacked along the interior hallways, and the bedrooms on the perimeter so that every bedroom had a window either looking outward or into the (huge) courtyard. The windows didn't open because freshmen are idiots who would have thrown things out them or tried to climb out them, so they didn't help with fresh air but it was still a good safety thing (i.e. firemen could break the window and get people out in case of emergency).
@@maybeyourbaby6486 yep even vents take up a huge amount of space, not to mention that if they opt for exposed vents due to lack of space, that place definitely is not going to look welcoming or good to live in. idk why they wanna design it like this, it's weird and costs more in the long run compared to just getting windows for every room.
@@mandabee8721the first thing people learn in architecture and planning is to put windows in every room in a residential space, except for maybe the storage. even fixed windows that do not open still provide something, like being able to look at something that is not the wall. aside from safety reasons like you said, firemen being able to break windows for people to get out of, it's just overall important to not feel so enclosed by walls like it's an isolation cell.
There's no way ventilation doesn't fail here, people in the center of the tesseract will die of suffocating and no windows is literally not legal, fire code requires multiple exit points
Something's up: This project's using $1.5B to build 1.68M square feet of space. That's almost $900/square foot. A single-family home runs $1100-150/square foot. Multiunit housing like dorms should be cheaper- especially if (like with this project) it uses prefabricated modules. The amenities could explain maybe doubling or tripling the cost per square foot, but not 9x the cost. So........where the shit is all the money going? And there's no way a professional investor like Munger wouldn't notice the $/square foot is way too high. That's the first thing he'd look at. So........yeah this isn't just a fire trap, it's a really obvious con. IMHO.
Single family homes are light framed lumber. and 11 story building in an earthquake zone is going to be steel and rigorously reinforced. High ventilation and plumbing requirements, a higher humber of internal walls... The typical dorm is 300-350/sq ft, but the tend towards 3-4 story structures and 2 person rooms, with a single large bathroom per floor - and no kitchen space.
It's kind of interesting to see all those upscale projects that seem to try to replicate what those of us who grew up in the former Soviet Union would recognize as коммуналки (communal apartments)
Makes it even funnier and quite ironic to read this knowing the USA government tries to make people believe what is gonna turn their country into the worst "communist hellscape" their fever dreams cound conjure up is a public health system.
Ive seen those. To be honest, if they were cheap, and let me save money for a house.... Id probably be down with it. Live in a small room for 3 years to set me up for life, cool. My problem, is they're marketed as "luxury" and are what apartments used to cost.
I never really took note of the fact that all the dorms at my university have windows, but I can say for a fact if I wasn't able to look outside during my time living there I would have lost my shit. Also not sure how are they going to properly ventilate all the stoves they plan on having. If one person burns their popcorn it's going to smell terrible 5ever
Someone on Twitter honestly said if there *was* a fire, they could just easily locate one of the available windows and climb out - wow! If only all those who died in fires due to inept building codes knew leaving was an option! Darn it! Everyone throughout history who was stampeded on, burned up, or suffocated in fire code hellscapes are rolling in their graves. I think of the nightclub fires in recent decades, the Shirtwaist Factory fire, and numerous others that taught us so much. But the worst part is that while the knowledge IS out there and easily accessible - people would still gladly forfeit that wisdom for convenience and cost cutting. It will be unfortunate if we slip back into allowing slack building standards to save space, time, and money.
It's not the fire - it's the smoke. Reminds me of the interior of the Scandinavian Star. The ship burned. People were found dead in their cabins and clumped in the hallways - not from the fire, but from smoke inhalation. This building is a death trap.
Yes bcz it totally make sense that around 4,500 persons can take turns to exit the building through the only few windows and wait calmly meanwhile the whole building is on fire.
So I was an RA for several years and have lived in 6 different types of dorms over the course of my degree. I have some opinions on this building. Honestly, some of the things you mentioned are pretty standard across dorm living. It is pretty definitionally supposed to be communal living, that's what dorms are. If you're not a person who does well living communally then typical dorms might not be a good living situation for you and you might need to seek out differently designed dorms/apartments that accommodate how you are able to live. That said, the plans for this building are a nightmare. The thought of working as an RA in that building horrifies me. First of all, if you think 8 full time staff members is enough to address the needs of 4500 students, you need help. You would ideally want around double that to have a ratio that allows the hall directors to actually engage with and know students, which is essential to dorm living. And that also doesn't account for non-full time workers like Housing and Facilities Ambassadors, and of course, RAs (Resident Assistants) who are the backbone of any dorm system and the only reason communal living like dorms do is possible. When communities, especially ones made up of young people just figuring out how to live and function independently, are as close as dorm living is, you CANNOT just let people loose with no supervision or structure. An RA teaches conflict resolution, addresses mental health crises, and makes sure that everyone in their wing/hall is safe and successful, they are the ONLY way that living in a dorm is a sustainable way of living for most people. You would need around 100 RA'S to staff a building like that effectively, and I didn't see any kind of accommodations for RA's built into those plans.
Munger designed a Hong Kong housing crisis for the UCSB student. HK with everything that is cool and luxurious, but worse housing for the lowest tier of their citizen. They live on shared apartment where the unit is further compartmentalized into smaller unit, thus called coffin houses.
As an HVAC engineer, while there are definitely psychological concerns about no windows, there are code minimums that require a certain amount of fresh air per occupant be introduced into the air. I'm not saying this is a great design, but it would be totally illegal for them to just be recirculating air. Prefabricated units are not uncommon nowadays. Maybe do a little research on that. The pods are probably not structurally integral, but would be inserted once the "shell space" of the building was built, so they would really be providing finishes. This is still a hell scape building, but I wanted to contribute that information.
I for one appreciate the insight on the pods, from an outsider perspective the Lego analogy was really close to what I thought when I heard about the pods
Thank you for bringing up the information on pre-fabricated buildings! My mother is a civil engineer and I’ve heard about pre-fab buildings for a long time, they do it a lot for sheds and houses now as far as I understand
It being illegal doesn't mean that's not how he designed it. he's not an architect, he doesn't know the ins and outs of building safety codes. I can only hope this just means the building plans haven't been through a legal review yet.
That's what I've been thinking. My county, at least, has very strict regulations on housing- even cohabitation. Rooms must meet a certain size, there is a limit of how many people can live in a certain amount of space, and safety is a massive concern. It's so strict here that it limits the building of 'tinyhouses' and homeless shack housing- but for good reason. Scientifically, our standards are the bare minimum for safety and mental+physical health. Just each of these pods would be very much illegal here, let alone the building itself. My guess is that they haven't yet run this by the city planning office.
@@TheGuindo true, he's not an architect, but architects don't design HVAC systems. A mechanical engineer who is registered as a Professional Engineer in the project's state has to seal drawings (blueprints) in order to apply for a permit. There are major legal obligations to sealing a set of drawings. No engineer would put their seal on a system without outside air. They would be at least sued, and possibly have their registration taken away, which is a big deal. You're correct that this hasn't passed design review yet, and I think that's why there's so much publicity about the project right now. I'd be happy to answer questions about the design review process if you want to know more.
I’m surprised no one had pointed out was this basically is a floor plan for. It’s a county jail. Several cell blocks, within them multiple “pods”, all consisting of multiple cells(with legitimate cell dimensions and layouts), and a dayroom in each pod. But atleast in county jail there was a blurry window slit in the cell and a toilet and sink.
Nobody who hasn’t lived in dorms should play any role in designing them. Like imo, communal spaces are good for students to collaborate and stuff but you HAVE to have some basic expectations of privacy. This entire building is set up in such a way that everyone is gonna know your business - when you come and go, who you’re hanging out with, etc. Sharing a dorm with 8 people where you *all* have shared amenities is going to be a hellworld too - like, I went to boarding school and our houses had these communal kitchens and bathrooms and stuff, and they were constantly being shut down bc people made messes of them. Common areas for meeting, working together, or socializing? Sure! Great! Almost every campus would benefit from having more of these, especially in buildings housing the equivalent of a small town. But you’ve got to have some privacy, and imo, that should absolutely include in-unit laundry. Even if it was shared with a couple roommates that’s still leagues better than shared laundry.
I will BET like so much money that the investor guy owns at least a substantial part of the pod-producing company, which is why he’s so adamant his design will be used: he’ll probably make more money than he spends
some of my friends lived in a big fancy dorm like this in their first year of uni ( 'movie room' communal spaces, fancy lobby, etc etc) and they all got depressed because of how small and shitty the actual rooms were. they'd complain about noise and yeah, I'm pretty sure Having A Window was one of the only things keeping them sane. this is inhumane lol
I lived in the largest dorm residence in Canada - over 1800 beds, designed by a dude who built a prison, and is notorious for its high suicide rate. That place was a 5 star resort compared to this, based solely on the fact that it had at least one window in every room. Thinking that people don't need windows and natural light is psychopathic.
something that wasnt mentioned that im concerned about is it earthquake proof building? just because the design worked in michigan, doesnt mean its gonna work in a completely different environment. the fact that the main architect resigned for safety concerns gives teh impression that they are not going to prioritise earthquake safety. like im no architect or construction worker but the proposal is to build off site and then assembled on site makes me think its not gonna have enough structure reinforcement
Lol I go to UCSB and there's literally a protest going on right as I type this. The construction bus loud and annoying, they cut off a bike path past the library, which is annoying as fuck. I've seen normal dorm rooms with FOUR people stuck in them, when even three is a stretch. Anyway we got a survey from the school asking how we felt about this godforsaken building. I'm sure you can guess how I answered.
Hi fellow Gaucho! I went to UCSB years ago and I'm curious, where the heck is this being built?! And thanks for protesting this madness. It looks insane.
In Korea we have a similar type of windowless residence called Goshiwon, and I can assure you, this dorm is just a glorified version of what I experienced there.
Im a freshman who is living in a “cluster” style dorm hall and my buildings setup is a lot better than that mess. All the students get windows(views vary) and we have space for a desk, bed (optional lofted) and a decently big closet. And thats for one person the same thing is duplicated for a “roommate” who you share a bathroom and mini fridge with. We each get our own sinks and share a shower and toilet. Multiplay this setup by 6 and you have 12 people living in a cluster. The rooms are all surrounding the common area (tv, microwaves, couches and some places to eat) All i am trying to say is that a building in this style can be made humanly. So like its not impossible for this to be made into a good residence hall, but i really doubt that it will be considering millionaires are involved
If they're willing to cut down from 8 people per house to 4 (maybe 5?) and look into having windows, yes, you can flip the blueprint into something humane. You'll most likely have to scrap the current plans, so I'd say: just start over. Say you give that same living area to 4 people instead of 8. You'd have 4 people per appartment. 8 appartments per house (as shown) would mean 32 people per house, and so 256 people per floor (assuming we're keeping the 8 houses per floor model). Build this in a 6 floors building (say 5 of living accomodations, plus one for common ammenities - study rooms, cafeterias, grab & go, a work out space of some sort). You'd have 1280 people living in a single building, which is still massive. Build 4 of these things and you'd have 5120 people living in these dorms. You'd need a lot more land. So yes, we can build something like this and yet keep it humane. The problem is: the people in charge of the money don't give two figs about student well-being. If they can cram 4500 students into a dorm and keep squeezing them for money for decades after, they will.
Nah the whole thing is trying to make sense but it doesn’t. In the first accommodation I lived in the uk the flats were 10 en-suite rooms sharing a full kithen, which is pretty standard for all accommodations in the uk. I’ve never understood how you can live without a kitchen.
As a college student, if this was my dorm, I would want to throw myself beneath a bus even more than I already do now. That community living space is also so unnecessarily large compared to the tiny little bedrooms. If my room did not have a window I would not have made it this far in life.
Listen, I suffered through sharing a nine-foot-wide space with someone else in a stuffy tiny dorm room for a whole year, but at least I had a WINDOW. I can't decide whether the ability to close a door behind me and be Alone In My Own Room would be worth this building's torture. With a megacomplex like that, you'd never be truly alone - and that does TERRIBLE things to your mental health.
Rumor has it that one of my university's dorms was designed by a prison architect. It was all concrete (including the actual dorm rooms), intimidatingly large, and with a central courtyard.
Amanda there is a podcast called ‘Well There’s Your Problem’ that recently did an episode about this ‘building’ that goes into a good amount of detail amount the project and its history from the perspective of engineers that I think you would appreciate
I Showed this building to my dad and my brother. My dad used to study architecture but ended up becoming a builder and my brother is an electrician. Both of their first respons was. " Is that even legal?" and "Do America not have fire safety laws??"
Charles Munger is *97* years old. Harvard Law School didn't allow women during the time he attended it. To quote John Mulaney, you shouldn't be allowed to order for the table if you're about to leave the restaurant!
So how does girl not allow go to school relates to this or Mr.Mungar...???
@@sandwicheman9772 they're highlighting how old the man is and how he grew up in what could be considered multiple eras in the past, and how that would impact his views on what should and shouldn't be acceptable for human treatment.
@@sandwicheman9772 I mean partially because he's designing on behalf of a gender he never even interacted with at his college, and partially because it shows that he's so old (and also so rich and out of touch) that he'd have no idea what the demands of a student in 2021 are.
It concerns me that you can't understand such a basic point. Feels like you'd say 2+2=5
I love that quote, gotta remember it
@@sandwicheman9772 you shouldn’t be questioning something like that when you can barely type a cohesive sentence, my dude.
"I'm not an architect but I'm also not an idiot" needs to be merch
As someone with an architecture degree... I'd buy that
11:46 just keeping this as a bookmark
This is the first video I’ve ever seen from this person but I’d buy that shirt
How about … I may not be an architect but I’m not an idiot
as a former student who changed fields pls i want this lmao
The fact that Munger will only pay if his design is used is so telling. He doesn't care about providing housing or anything like that he just wants to cosplay as an architect and he doesn't care about how others will be affected.
100% this is exactly what is going on. I say, if he wants that kind of power he should have to pay for the whole thing himself. Not a measly 12.5%
Especially when changing the design could save more than that amount.
"Watch me Lord my money over you! Aren't I amazing?!"-Munger probably.
This has big kindergartener energy. Interesting that there are no quotes to be found from the U of M grad students who live in his deathtrap now.
Cosplaying as someone with an actual job is what all billionaires do, Elon Musk cosplays as Tony Stark on Twitter, Jeff Bezos cosplays as Lex Luther in space, paid for by worker exploitation.
@@gateauxq4604 the building doesn’t exist yet so of course there are no quotes, I hope there are never any quotes because the building should never be built
Hi, Architect student here, this building literally looks like something your teacher would hand you the plan from and say "alright, for this unit, I want you to list all the problems with it, how you would improve it, and then redraw the plan into something livable". Like, there is SO, SO many things wrong with it. Even if we ignore the whole "no windows so people will feel bad" aspect.
Pretty pretty please tell me as many of the things wrong with it as you have time to list! I can guess at some of them, but I'm not an architecture student so I'm really really curious what the full laundry list is :)
@@Sandra_Fnot exactly a laundry list, it's teally just one big environmental uh-oh.
architecture students are learning about a thing called the 2030 project because it's what they want the next generation to focus on.
A lot of carbon emissions come from builds, and the goal of the 2030 project is to make buildings either net zero (produce as much electricity as they use) or net positive (produce more electricity than they use). An important part of this is making buildings in such a way that you decrease the amount of energy needed to inhabit it, and windows are like, the single most important part of that process.
No windows means that
1) students will have to use electric lighting as they have no natural light
2) students will have to rely more on air con for heating and cooling since they can't get natural heat from the sun through the window, nor cold air from the breeze outside
Then there's the general "being in a dorm with no windows isn't nice for the inhabitants as lack of natural light makes you grumpy.
I guess what I'd do to fix it, is instead of it being like.
[][][][]
[][][][]
I'd break it up like
[] [] [] []
[] [] [] []
So it's four buildings instead of 1.
TLDR: Not having enough windows can make a building worse for the environment and that's not something we need right now.
@@lunammoon8503 Thanks for the reply! Definitely makes sense laid out like that. Interesting just how many positive knock-on effects there are from natural light.
You are wrong about the environmental aspect. Modular/Pod construction is better for the environment. Just the delivery alone is 90% reduced emissions. Not to mention the method of construction is a huge reduction of waste and emissions from transport to the landfill. Maybe change schools?
@@DarkGloComics Maybe reply to other people as if you believe there's a human on the other end. Even if you feel that there's an error to correct, there's no reason to be a jerk.
"we need to make a new building to house more students."
"how about something thats structured like an actual prison?"
"PERFECT"
It's a violation of code for a prison cell to not have egress, i.e. a window. Mull that over for a bit.
Made me think of the game Prison Architect
Tbh this place looked like a concentration camp on the floor plans. Scary as fuck.
It’s even worse than any barrack I’ve ever lived in, it’s only slightly better than living on a ship.
@@tamcon72 Ever been to prison? Silly ass. Those aren't windows and you sure as hell can't see out of them.
Munger built in sims 4 and was like "I'm an architectural GENIUS"
Dude used the Natural lights trait and thought it'd be enough here.
he didn’t wait to see his sims die
Pretty sure the sims would revolt if you made this in game. Actually, I want to see someone building this in the sims. Lemme see the chaos!
"We have amenities!"
the amenities:
-Exits
-Staff apartments
-Trash room
Exits almost didn't make it in! In the original plans, dorm rooms were going to be build *around* the students. Who needs doors when you have, um, lamps...and a chair...and a...chair?
It’s almost like architects go through 6 years of schooling plus more for accreditation/licensure for a REASON
Horrible floor plan aside, any potential psychological effects of this building NEED to be considered ESPECIALLY when designing for vulnerable group of users (i.e. students)
My interior design degree is crying screaming & throwing up rn
Even Brutalism is even more appealing and comfortable, homey, than whatever the hell this hell is.
Seriously. How much of a bloated, cocky billionaire do you have to be to say "You can have my money, but only if you let me play architect. Training? No, I don't have any. Why do you ask?"
Same
@@elvingearmasterirma7241 brutalism still gives people windows so yes ugly as fuck but safer and more practical than this mess.
And like especially after the pandemic lessons about airflow and the effects of isolating living spaces.......
"If you maximize the light, you get fewer people in the building."
You also get fewer people in the building if the building is an insufferable hellscape
My thoughts exactly what’s the point of increasing the capacity of a building so shitty no one will live in it anyway
Not really. Students settle for inhumane living conditions all the time. They know we're cornered.
When I play the sims, sometimes I just build a 3x4 room with whatever's the smallest item that can meet all of a sim's needs (so no bed, just a coffee machine), bc sims aren't human so they'll be fine living in a windowless box crammed with furniture. This very much has the same energy except Munger doesn't seem to know that students are humans
Lmfaooo
Oh, how come I've literally never thought of replacing beds with coffee machines? I'll be doing that in the future!
dont let munger see this or hell do it
Indeed, he forgot the HUMAN factor.
There are so many efficient designs that don't work because humans inherently don't like to be treated like robots.
I also thought this was a building lifted straight out of a video game world!
Amanda: "I'm not an architect..."
Well I am, and holy shit this is the worst designed dorm I've seen in my entire life.
I'm an architecture enthusiast, and I would like to add to that by saying holy shit of God, how does V's megabuilding in Cyberpunk 2077 seem less oppressive than this _despite being designed to feel oppressive_
I’ve seen worse, but still…
This design makes me glad to live in my state. Legally, you cannot sell a space as a bedroom if it doesn't have a window large enough for an adult of average height and weight to escape per state fire code. (Indiana state fire code) It also has to have a closet and ,"breathable " air circulation.
And you keep a rope in your bedroom room, to climb down?
@@Mecharnie_Dobbs I think the fire evacuation plan is to get to the nearest staircase but if you're stuck in your room there's fire ladders that collapse to the size of a pillow and reach about 10ft down. From there you can either jump down safely or climb down the ladder when the fire department responds
In my state (Minnesota) you can legally have a bedroom without an egress window if there is a proper exit strategy and a fire sprinkler in the bedroom. I know because my room does not have a window and it fucking sucks ass.
@@saraschu2735 From the 7th floor?
I believe it works like this in most places but dorms are temporary living so they actually can be build with now fckn windows
The fact that this 97 year old billionaire refuses to give any money to this project unless his design plans are followed to a T... It's just batshit insane. The UC System has been struggling to find the funds to build suitable housing for students and along comes this almost 100 year old billionaire who says "I'll give you millions of dollars but only if you let me play pretend as an architect 🙂" Absolutely insane
It's cause he needs real test if pods can be use for housing he been trying to make housing made as cheap as possible like Elon musk doing
He has already built a couple of similar buildings and the reality is even worse but it seems to have given him the confidence to say he knows best.
Why? I pay only for what I want to pay for. I like his idea. I've lived in similar accommodation and loved it, actually. It's a temporary living situation. You need just enough space to sleep, eat and study. It really does work and dividing it into smaller 8 person unit is great - that's exactly how I lived. An 8 person apartment in a dorm building. I literally loved it!
He wont pay it all off guaranteed. Billionaires are the cheapest aholes to ever live.
@@AnHeC there are only two doors in the entire building, and with a bunch of college kids with microwaves they’re basically begging for a Triangle Shirtwaist factory 2.0. That is an OSHA department worker’s worst nightmare.
I am a current student, typing this in my dorm. This design is INHUMANE. Before coming to school, I lived in a room with no natural light for four years (a house addition that was added 'behind' my room before we moved there). I didn't think it was a big deal at the time. Now I can't stand being in a room with the overhead light on. It actually gives me anxiety. My friends think I'm crazy when I turn out all the lights and open the damn windows. I am now starting to realize that I might have experienced white room torture, and these designs are even worse than what I experienced. At least in my old house, I could go one room over and experience the sun, these dorms are nightmarish.
My second relevant experience was my freshman dorm, which was a single in an old building. It was about the size of the bedrooms in this monster dorm, but was longer and slimmer, so slim that the bed could only be placed in one spot. To make it worse, I was on the top floor and we had dormer windows so only about 2/3 of my space was usable. I lofted my bed and put the desk and drawers underneath. I don't think I was damaged by this room. We had natural light, a decent view, and I don't NEED a lot of space. But I had to turn to the side to get past the bed because it was too close to the closet. It is a suitable amount of space for short term living. Definitely no longer than a year.
Not every dorm needs to be amazing, but they have to have the minimum space and light to make life there worth living. It will cost more, take up more room, and house less students, but THIS is unacceptable and literal torture that will follow these kids for years.
Also, I am VERY concerned about safety. 4000 people escaping out of how many staircases???
Not super relevant, but this comment reminded me that my bedroom in my early teens was also super tight. I had space for a bed, a closet, and a desk, but no space to actually put a chair in front of the desk, so I ended up always using the living room table to do any homework, etc. The desk in my room was basically just used as a place to stack more of my stuff (storage). The closet door also couldn't open fully without hitting the bed.
Anyway, it was my choice though. When we moved into the house, I chose that room as my bedroom, because I liked the location and the window/door that led straight outside, so I didn't need to go through the hallway/living room to get outside. (And I was always in-and-out because our dogs weren't allowed indoors, so this saved me a lot of time.)
I could have had a more roomy bedroom if I'd wanted to. I think it makes a huge difference if you're forced to live in a tiny room, vs when you have the choice.
I don't disagree but I have to wonder what people think of military housing then? Because by the standards of some of the places I was stationed, these rooms are practically luxurious. Don't even get me started on quarters aboard a ship.
Yeah like I obviously get that its california so its a bit different, but I have TERRIBLE seasonal depression, and when I was in hs, even despite the classrooms having windows, it was so overwhelming. Something about man-made light is just really uncomfortable for me. Especially if its the kind that's pre-installed into the ceiling, which I would assume these are. Gives me the shivers just thinking about it. Do NOT take advantage of sunlight
I lived for a couple of years on a small room with a small window and no direct light and now I never have the overhead light on even at night, I rely on indirectly placed bulbs and lamps. hadn't ever made the connection...
They will give you parachutes or climbing ropes to escape in case of fire.
imagine how messed up student's internal clocks would become going to bed and waking up in pitch black rooms and sharing two showers and bathrooms and one kitchen with eight people sounds like hell on earth, the funk after just a month...who would even want to clean those 😭
This was literally my life. Lived in a 'den' because they couldn't legally call it a bedroom. Hotbox, no windows, no lockable door, 2 bathrooms for 7 people and a shared floor kitchen
my current apartment gets very little light in the bedrooms and the back one did in fact fuck up my sleep schedule so bad i was going to bed at 4 and waking up really late on the regular. i’ve since moved to the other room with more light, but it’s not exactly better. hopefully i’ll be moving to a brownstone next year i fucking hate this apartment lol
I can tell you two things. 1) If he submitted this plan for a prison it would be immediately denied because it doesn’t meet minimum living space requirement rights that American inmates have. Evidently, non-incarcerated students do not have the same rights. 2) rich people saying they will only donate if their plans for torturous dorms are implemented is not at new thing. My school accepted money from one of them, and it was so bad they tried to mandate people live in it and they got sued over it.
Funny thing is, Munger is probably one of those people that's horrified by the mention of socialized anything, and yet this looks like the sort of thing you'd see in the Soviet Union. It's probably worse, even.
Those look like shipping containers.
What regulations for prisons would they be violating? I’m thinking of the large communal sleeping spaces that the prisons I’ve seen have. Less space and privacy than this building but maybe more natural light, is that it? (Not defending the building at all, genuinely curious because I don’t know what the requirements are for prisons!)
@pipitameruje
Gulags were worse but the actual apartament complexes were (and still are) luxurious in comparison
There're many things I don't like about them but at least they weren't a result of late capitalist hell
They could build around a courtyard to ensure everyone has a window for SAFETY and natural lighting and fresh air. The design of the “houses” is not bad, it’s the fact that they’re putting 4500 people in one massive building.
Not only that fire escapes and escape exits from the building. There is a specific set of rules architecture follows. This feels like a prison or a real dark elementary school feeling.
That wouldn't make the residents miserable enough. That's his goal.
@@victorlannister5606 you mean how new schools are being built as panopticon layouts? On UA-cam they had a video on the new Sandy hook elementary layout, I can't find it anymore so they must have taken it down. But it had the panopticon with a guard in a tower and a remote guard with controls of the campus. In the video is showcased that the different sections of hallways had the ability to be shut down and GASSED.
@@victorlannister5606 The USA is a fascist wonderland.
@@privateemail9755 ohh wait jacob geller had a video that covered that! maybe that's what you're thinking of or maybe he also took inspo from that vid idk. his vid is called spaces designed for violence i think. this definitely fits haha
The problem with pod style buildings is they never get updates or actually make use of the supposed benefits of pod design: that a pod can be replaced when needed. The Contemporary resort at Disney World was designed as pods… the whole building settled and locked the pods into place, so they had to do refurbs in the “traditional” manner. The Nagkin Capsule tower in Japan also was built with the understanding they’d replace and redesign units as needed… it never happened because if you needed to replace a unit on the 3rd floor, you’d have to displace residents on the 10 floors above it and no one would allow it.
So basically his “good idea” has been tried before and didn’t work, no matter how much of a Harry Potter coating he tries to put on it by calling the pods Houses.
The other point of pod (that actually works) is building small stable units in places where getting construction to the location would be expensive and un weildy. But yeah pods are not as useful as prefab slabs that do most of the same things without dumb promises
He calls it Houses
I call it Jail Cells
Prefab is a good construction method for this case. It promote fast construction that makes China 1 month apartment a possibility. But viable longetivity might be questionable.
But the fundamental design error make this dorm into failure.
I thought about the Japanese capsule tower too. The tower was actually a pretty cool, if totally misguided idea. Some of those pods people decorated to their liking were so fun and unique. The whole building had a really neat retro-futuristic feel to it and its a real piece of architecture history. Its just such a shame it became so unsafe and can't even be preserved for the historical value.
There definitely sounds like there’s an idea hat could work in there, it just needs a lot of practical development
Natural light is sooo important. My college has made the effort to make sure every dorm room has a window. My college used to have dorms that were underground/basement level and had no natural lighting/windows. The students there became incredibly depressed and mentally ill. They had to shut and close them off. Now they’re called the suicide suits
Indeed, that is the bad stuff that can happen. Some places are not nice to life, but if you got no actual sunlight during the day.. it gets a lot worse.
The more i think about how my junior year in college was the most depressed I’ve ever been in my life and at the time I was living in a basement unit with only a sliver of a window that started on the grass. Funny how things kinda click Im hindsight 😭
I don’t like windows, they make me uncomfortable probably due to watching way too many horror story as a child that involves creatures looking through windows, but I also spend atleast half my day actually outside and 25% of it in my living room and have Multiple planted tanks. Speaking of horror stories I think this is actually modeled after one since it feels familiar.
What college was this?
University housing is such a major issue! My little brother goes to UCSB and lived in a triple (3 person room) his freshman year - imagine the smallest possible room that can fit some bunk beds, desks, and closets, with basically no standing room left. Idk how he handled that! And again the cost to live in a crowded room like that, which was considered the “cheapest” option ?? Absolutely wild
I had a pretty small dorm room when I studied abroad in France. Had my bed, desk, closet, and a decent amount of storage. Plus my own tiny bathroom, like an airplane bathroom with a shower overhead lmao. But most importantly, there was a big beautiful window! I really enjoyed having my own space, even if it was small, and truly the window made all the difference. Without it I think I would have been miserable in there.
All this to say, there definitely are efficient ways to build student housing that prioritize comfort, privacy, and safety. This Munger design is NOT it. Wish universities would stop putting students in this impossible position; either you have no housing or you have to pay almost 20k for part of a room with up to 2-3 roommates.
It’s like there is no middle ground. I see some places that are like full luxury apartments and then some that are mini jails
In Sweden it a bedroom NEEDS to have a window because it is considered a room where people don't only spend time in occasionally which means it needs good ventilation, access to daylight and act as viable fire escape.
Same in the US. It can’t legally be classified as a bedroom without a window so idk what that dude was thinking with this design. Not to mention all the fire safety issues this design has.
Soooo, I can't be the only person who thinks the "fitness center" and other amenities are definitely not going to be scaled to the sheer amount of people they're supposedly stuffing into that one building?
And yeah, that's a building that should never pass any type of approval because it would be a total hazard.
Also, I lived in a reasonably big dorm, like.. 400-ish people in the building, 12 per dorm, and the noise was *terrible*.
I looked at Munger's other student housing. Generally the students like it: lots of space, everyone gets their own bathroom and there's two of everything in the kitchen (ie stove, dishwasher, fridge) so there's enough things for everyone to use, and there's 2 living rooms. Biggest complaint (I mean, duh) is that there's no windows in the bedrooms. Students had to make it through the pandemic in those rooms :(
Now, he's removed both living rooms and halved the space of the bedrooms, and on top of that, narrowed the common area as slim as possible. I wouldn't call that an improvement. And worst of all, at least the other rooms had windows in the common area- he got rid of that too. Honestly, I'd REALLY like for him to tell me just one thing he's improved on here, other than that he can fit more people in now
It's not true most people tend not to like it, it essentially a pod
@@basswolf4749 It's definitely a Pod hotel. I wasn't aware he built these in Michigan, but makes sense. The thing is I can't see the city council or college approving this building unless he pays them off. We have way more regulations needed out here in California.
It’s an improvement for THEM because now they can house more students at a lower cost :)))))))))
People had to go through quarantine in a place with no windows?! Man, I think I'd had ended up km 😢 that's insane
The other dorm is for graduate students, so it can't be super horrible like the UCSB dorm. The question I have is if you want to house more students, why not build the building higher? Like make it 15 stories high or high enough to give each student some space. I guess that would be more expensive though, so the students are going to have to live in a low security prison instead.
he could have literally just deigned the building with internal courtyards??!?!!! Like, put all the amenities on the first two floors with internal courtyards that have sky-access, and then build the "Houses" around a central area with a view outside
I stayed in a dorm like that except it had one side of the courtyard partially open, it was nice.
that’s exactly what i was thinking- like there IS a way to add real windows on the inside of a building ;-;
Thats what houses do, even if you dont get even light in well, it is fresh air. Th lighning copuld be considered but a window, is impoerant. Andhouses have oftten ouryards fro exat that reason, even if yo sun, youcan have , a window.
It's insane to me that people aren't even considering the fact you'd have 7 roommates... it's already hard for many people to get along with 1 or 3, much less 7??
it's not that bad, that's quite common. I lived with 7 other people for my first year of university and it was fine.
I’d posit that it’s not that bad for certain peaple I personally would sooner lay my lick over a lit stove for 7 day than sown an hour in a room with 7 peaple loveing with 7 folk for years in a connected grid of 8 padded cells sounds like my worst nightmare
I would quite actually pass away with 7 roommates
Even with good roommates in a larger space, that would be hard. And compatible roommates are hard to match together, let alone finding a group of eight.
They do have private rooms here at least, some dorms are still two people in a 10x10 and a bathroom shared with 16 people that has showers like a open locker room. And then no kitchen, but the campus had a dinning hall like cafeteria that was buffet style for all meals.
As someone currently in a dorm and keeps my window closed all the time, even I know not even having windows would be terrible. Also, my college kept talking about all the study rooms and computer labs we have when in reality most people like being able to stay in their rooms if there’s enough space to work. The only reason I’ve seen people leave is just because people are too loud sometimes
100% theres a huge difference between not using a window and not having a window
Yeah honestly most of the time I would do homework on my laptop while laying in bed. I really only left to eat, go to class, or hang out with friends. If I was working on a design project that required a lot of desk space, then I would go to the studio downstairs. My dorm was always quiet except for these two people that laughed really loudly.
You are the exception and your experiences are not universal. Also, even when your window is closed the glass provides a certain level of air and temperature exchange. They are designed to do exactly this. And unless you've tacked up light proofing as well as keeping it closed, even light that gets through closed blinds is of a vastly different quality than artificial light. But if you're doing that and getting little to no natural light, I have deep, deep concerns for your mental health.
@@undeadorion or, you know, I could go outside
as someone who has attended ucsb and lived in dorms there, i can attest to how students use the study spaces all the time. they are a great group study space, they have whiteboards & markers usually furnished by housing & student services. They're open so if you want light at night but don't want to disturb your roommates.
To be honest, the building can always be used as a Squid Game building.
All joking aside, just imagine the power going out and there is no light anywhere, terrifying!
Then the purge siren goes off. Omg nightmare fuel.
There would probably be a generator or emergency lighting for a scenario like that. I mean, they are supposed to have those right?
complete black out, perfect for the night massacre of the Squid Game :-)
@@Rammstom2 Emergency lights would be required, just like smoke detectors.
Well there really is a ton of rooms like this is Asia; living as an graduated adult also (w a kitchen next to the door and shared shower area). I went to uni in America but I had several friends w rooms like this in Uni in Japan and Korea.
the moment I saw those bedrooms in the middle of the plan, the alarm bells in my head went off. in the third year of my architecture program, we designed residential complexes in this same sort of unit style, and the second a critic saw a bedroom without a window, you'd get chewed out. I am utterly baffled as to how those bedrooms ever got planned, let alone proposed.
also, the building strategy of off-site unit assembly helps shorten construction time and is actually pretty efficient and effective, but the amount of people they're cramming into each unit is utterly shameless. I am praying this nightmare doesn't get built.
Im just curious, for a building with the same outer dimensions, how many students so you think would fit in it humanely?
@@serpentmaster1323 after a quick look at the plans, it looks like each apartment has 8 bedrooms, each at 10' x 7', totaling 560 sqft. the average private square footage a person is expected to have varies from person to person and from city to city, but the bare minimum is expected to be at about 120 sqft.
already, we're struggling to fit just half the amount of students in that same space. (rounding down from 4.6 people, but obviously you can't have a sixth of a person (unless Munger is even more of a monster than we already knew))
and that's not even getting into the fact that, without some major rearranging, only 24 out of 504 bedrooms on each floor will have access to natural light. this is literally illegal in some cities. I'm not familiar with Santa Barbara's code, but in some cities a room that does not have a window cannot be legally called a bedroom.
in terms of fixing this nightmare, this sort of interior-locked organization could be remedied by "light" stairwells, or essentially vertical corridors for skylights that could penetrate even the dead space in the middle of the project. it would be all indirect light, but it would technically be acceptable. however, that would, of course, take away a good chunk of precious square footage per floor.
to summarize, without major design changes, easily only half the expected occupancy (so 2178 students) could humanely fit in these square footages. if natural light is factored in (which it should be), there'd have to be a central light stairwell in each apartment, with bedrooms branching off of it in order to have a window. that would lose more square footage than I care to calculate, but I imagine about 3-4 people could live somewhat comfortably in each apartment under these conditions.
Imagine being in the "stall" where you have two other "stalls" on each side of you. The noise would have to be wild. Also...speaking of stalls...birthing stalls for horses are actually bigger than the sleeping space they're talking about. And no a birthing stall is NOT gigantic. It's actually very hard to tell the difference between birthing & regular stalls unless you have a tape measure or work with both types of stalls. Point being!!! Horses have more accommodating conditions!
At least a horse can turn around in their stall! It looks like you can barely do that in these “rooms”
Things you need in an 8 person apartment:
-Windows THAT OPEN
-relaxation area WITHIN THE LIVING AREA (ie not a shared safe space down the hall, one in each apartment)
-A kitchen that cannot be called a "kitchenette"
-MORE THAN 2 BATHROOMS
-EXTREMELY LOW RENT
And ideally:
-Easy and accessible personal space customization
-Plenty of space for plants/Hypoallergenic plants provided
I love how they have room for a shit ton unnecessary amenities that will get unused by a ton of students but not enough space to let people have a freaking window. I highly advise looking at the proposal and see the mock ups of the different amenity areas. They're enormous.
And they would definitely charge the students more than average and say that it's because of these amenities, a lot of which would need to be staffed to be used by the students.
Yes...this is how modern apartments are outside of colleges. Tiny, high-priced, but maximized use of space in the best areas with lots of amenities. And wouldn't'cha know?? Those are designed solely by architects--not billionaires! 😱😂😂😂
New rule: he can only build the dorm if he lives for a year with 7 other people in a “””house”””
7 smelly students too.
The students get free tuition and a million dollars each for being near him
I am a smelly student if they need volunteers
It would be a nice rule if not for the fact he's going to die before the construction would've ended
My school UBC, has something similar called nano suites; HOWEVER, these suites has Murphy beds and large windows as well as a private bathroom so despite the small space, it’s more than liveable plus the rent is the cheapest on campus
Shout out from Seattle. I love UBC🇨🇦🥰!!
Murphy beds are fantastic. If you want to save space that is a solid way to do it.
hi fellow ubc student! besides the prices (but it's vancouver so that's expected lmao) i think our student housing is pretty good
I drove a total of 3 hours every day to attend UBC and stay living at home lol
I have always wanted a murphy bed/secret furniture or rooms.
a professor of mine showed us the plans for this in a lecture and, rightfully so, compared it to the breeding pods in the Matrix. he also assumed (or hoped) that they restructure the plans because the building as it is simply does not keep up with fire safety standards ANYWHERE in the world. also from a student perspective living in one of these rooms seems miserable. like you barely have room to put anything or move around AND you don't have a window?? my mental health would absolutely hit rock bottom. none of the common areas would be able to save that. none.
it would genuinely make me suicidal to live here like it’s treating students like animals
Everyone should understand why ventilation is a concern. It takes a ton of energy to get fresh, clean air into a building like this, which is absolutely required in order to help curb the spread of things like COVID and the Flu. While yes, you can technically fit a bunch of people in this building so the initial investment is minimized, the operation costs of such a building will be significantly higher than one with lots of windows in order to maintain liveable air quality. Or, what will more likely happen, the ventilation system will be nowhere near sufficient and respiratory diseases will spread like wildfire in the stale, soul crushing air.
You should understand that you don't have a clue how HVAC works.
It still increases spead exceptional, aside that maybe the bility to open a window for fresh air, does wonders.
That building would also be an ecological nightmare. Good luck marketing yourself as a “green campus” with that guzzling monstrosity 🙄
Munger's quote is exactly what I would expect from someone who has never had to even consider living in a windowless rented room.
He's a very priviledged old man I bet even his casket will someday have a window for him.
He's far enough away from the possibility I'm sure he loves the idea of spartan living and considers milenials, gen x and whatever else exists too privileged while he, a chad ultra boomer babysat during the great depression.
This feels like a giant version of the fire-hazard house conversions that get built in “student ghettoes” in Canadian big cities. They take a single family home and turn it into 3-5 “apartments” with 5+ bedrooms each. The rooms are big enough for a twin bed and *maybe* a tiny desk or dresser; definitely not both. You end up with 20+ bedrooms on a plot of land that was designed for 4-5 max - and sometimes upwards of 30 people, since often student couples will share rooms.
People have died in these apartments in the Toronto area because they’re too crowded, don’t have adequate windows, and are thus impossible to quickly escape when a fire breaks out.
THIS!! Also where I live they are trying to sell these dorm style buildings to ADULTS which is a complete nightmare when you're looking for apartments. NO ONE WANTS TO LIVE LIVE LIKE THIS!!!! Also, my building burned down and destroyed all my shit and killed my two cats. We were not students, just had the misfortune of renting downtown in a non luxury building.
Iirc it wasn’t uncommon for 3-4 people to share a single bedroom in the nearby (poorly built) apartments and houses when I was going there. It’s probably more common now than ever.
Here in my city they have neighborhoods like that too. I knew people in a big house with over a dozen people crammed in that shared rooms with bunk beds. There were even two kitchens. Overall it was kinda shit, and the area was notorious for robberies and crazy shit happening. And everyone accepted it because it was comparatively cheap, everyone is tired and focused on school, and no one lived there long enough to really make a fuss.
Is there anywhere I can read about this or maybe a video? It isn't as bad here yet but more and more young people can't afford their own apartments now here either so this will eventually happen here too I guess.
I lived in a similar condition for two years, albeit in a different country. The people behind this "apartments" prey on those who don't meet the requirements to rent (mainly inmigrants and students) and charge whatever they want for a place that is a fire and health hazard.
This building does not look like it accessible for disabled students. Even if it were a good building and a good place to live on campus, it likely would be able to accommodate those with a physical disability, especially if they need a wheelchair.
UC Santa Barbara is a very active school, in that skateboard and bike lanes are everywhere, surfing, hiking and other sports are easily accessible, the Rec Cen has a pool, rock climbing, weights, racquetball as well.
BUT this means that an accident from doing said activities, speeding on a electronic scooter, or falling off a curb while drinking on the weekend easily incapacitates a formerly physical able person.
Every quarter I was there, at least one student in any of my classes came in on crutches, with a cast, or with a brace because of temporary disability, I can’t imagine what it would be like for students that have a chronic or permanent disability trying to live there.
To meet building code, every living space must have 2 ways to get out in case of a fire. If there's just 1 door and no windows, you won't be able to get building permits, let alone insurance.
The second way to get out of my apartment is an 11 story drop to the street lol
@@lzmunch just put creative mode and it should be fine.
@@lzmunch At least it would be an option you have to jump or not to jump.
@@spacedorito9592 😂
Just put a latch on the ceiling
wait, it’s gets better. since 94% of rooms have artificial light and ventilation, the building would have to fully evaluate in the case of a power outage.
I'm glad you're talking about this! It's basically one giant fire safety hazard!
You need a window in every bedroom in order to have to chances to escape in the event of a fire. This building spits in the face of the health and safety of the students who could live there.
Great point! When I lived in an area that had basements, I was explicitly told by the landlord that we were not allowed to use the basement bedroom as a bedroom because there is no fire escape
Like what is this guy thinking? How would this ever pass a fire inspection? "I'll give you money to build dorms that nobody can legally live in" lmao
@@shelbyb9965 Exactly! At university, I lived in on-campus/university owned apartments. The apartment I lived in was 65-70% underground. (Basically the above ground portion was tall enough for windows.) We had one window in the living room, one in the first bedroom, and two in my bedroom. The windows were flush with the ground. The windows were smaller than the other apartments above us, but they were longer. In case of fire/I couldn't exit out the apartment door, I could've pushed a chair/my bed over to a window, broken the screen out, grabbed something to anchor into the ground/grabbed dirt, and hoisted myself out. In the few residence halls that had basements, all had ping pong tables, bathrooms, microwaves, desks, and plumbing in them. (Some had washers and dryers.) There would be no way that they could safely have bedrooms down there.
I believe to qualify as a bedroom in most places, you need a window and a closet. I'm absolutely shocked that no organization has tried to slap a potential safety hazard on this project. Somewhere I saw that this could house 4,500 and would have 2 exits..... 2 exits for 4,500 students???? That's not safe at ALL. Heck, my HS has 750 students total and they required much more than 2 exists. The biggest residence hall at my Alma Mater I believe had 2 sets of double doors on each side of the building. So 8 exits total. Whoever gets assigned to the rooms furthest away from the windows/exit doors are absolutely screwed in the event of an emergency.
@@nerdoftheatre I can only imagine they think they're saving money by letting this guy pay for his own ego-stroking project. But if this place ever goes up in flames, they'll be paying for it many times over with all the lawsuits.
Well in most schools the windows don’t actually open all the way, so escaping from a fire that way wouldn’t actually work, but the fresh air and sunlight are so important when your living space is already really small.
@@jaygandra in an actual fire i can break a window, while i could cut my self on the glass that is far better than dying in a fire
I know dorms aren't exactly known for being spacious and wonderful but this feels like a post-apocalyptic fallout dorm and also like they're going to eventually have a very deadly fire season.
The first time there's any kind of maintenance issue it's going to instantly affect hundreds of students at the same time. Imagine a leak on the top floor. Imagine the horror of trying to deal with an infestation of ants, roaches, rats, mold, bedbugs etc. Imagine a medical emergency and the emt's have to get somewhere quickly. Plus not having natural sunlight is going to seriously f up people's natural biorhythms - imagine waking up in your pitch black room and finding out you overslept by hours.
As an architect in training, I literally physically recoiled when I saw the floor plans. I can’t believe this is actually getting built. I have no words for this.
I suspect it'll be so badly received that the second its "architect" is two metres under, it'll be going the same way.
Omg imagine the rooms on the perimeter being more expensive because they're the only ones that have natural light. "Prime Room with easy access to sunlight" lmao. Imagine those on the corners, "Deluxe Houses with windows on two sides" omg what a treat
What I don't understand is that with that layout it wouldn't even be that hard to give everyone a window. Literally just spread them out and put alleys i between each of the "houses." like windows don't have to have a nice view.
No no no. They must cram ever possible space with living spaces. More head in bed more profit. Wtf indeed a stupid excuse. They could also just put some of the amenities in the center space and living around it so at least they get light.
yeah, it could also have interior courtyards and light tubes to bring light and ventilation to the rooms in interior of the building, you don't have to make such a shitty to live in place.
Totally true. Though I'm sure they're not because that would nearly double the exterior wall length.
If you go to @6:09 you will see almost every room is internal to the building. There's no way they could give even 25% of them a window.
If you noticed the blueprint, and the supposed 11 floors of this monstruosity, even with alleys between each row of houses, the windows would get barely any sunlight. And the way air circulates in "corridors" like those is not great for ventilation. On paper, it doesn't look hard. In the real world, it wouldn't be much of an improvement. Only a couple of rooms and maybe the kitchenette would have a window.
I'd rather share a somewhat small room with one person than a cursed tiny house with eight. Dorm life isn't great (my residence hall doesn't even have a community kitchen) but seeing this made me feel super lucky. At least we have windows and clearly marked fire exits.
My biggest issue with living in the dorms were that you pay a lot of money to share a room with someone. If you want a solo room then prepare to fork out even more money that you don't have. You have NO personal/private space. You better hope you get along with your room mate or else things will be either awkward or anxiety inducing. If you do get along with your room mate, it can be fun though.
Either way, you could spend the same amount to live in a 2br 1bath apartment 5 min off campus (though there are a lot of those that are way overpriced as well). Right now I have my own room that is maybe around or a bit smaller than my dorm room. I have a kitchen now so I can go and buy food that you need a stove to make.
the sentence "at least we have windows and clearly marked fire exits" makes me so upset. like we really live in a society dude, wtf.
This building will cause a stampede and people will likely die the first time a student tries to cook for themself.
Not enough means of egress.
I wouldn't. I love the design and had a chance to live in a dorm like this. It was absolutely amazing! You have your own space and privacy. I can't express how many thousand times better it was compared to sharing a room with someone.
It’s like 19th century New York tenement housing
This reminds me of the Magnus Archives, where they designed a hotel to maximize feelings of loneliness and anxiety as part of their eldritch ritual
Yes! Maybe this guy is another Lonely avatar
@@reaperlou8649 American Peter Lukas
Maybe that's his intent
432 Park Avenue must have been designed by an avatar of the Vast, then! It's insanely tall and moves with the wind a lot.
I was just about to say that!
as someone who's lived in student apartments both with strangers and friends, bedrooms are where SO MUCH of your time is spent. even when it's a cohesive household, your room is Your Space. Especially if any of the residenrs have service animals or ESAs? There's just no space :/
THIS. I've lived with my best&closest friends and even then my room was My Space where I could get some down time, even if everyone in the house gets along perfectly fine, you need a SPACE for just you
This design IGNORES that people use WHEELCHAIRS
@@notmocka tbh i don't think I'll ever see the day colleges actually consider wheelchair users when planning things. I catered a meeting on campus accessibility, where the big guest was an electric wheelchair user. the room booked had like, inch+ molding on the floor of the doorway??? and a single steep, crumbling ramp to even get that far :/
And if one person has a pet, everyone in that house is going to be breathing in pet fur
my older sister is currently staying in one of the dorms while she's attending UCSB (these dorms usually house 2 people but everyone's stuffed with 3 sometimes 4 people because the college, according to my sister, accepted too many applicants to the college so... fun times) and was telling me about this "mega dorm." Luckily she's graduating in June but still, that mega dorm is just so inhumane.
i feel like this whole building is one giant ADA violation like how is anyone supposed to navigate those rooms with a wheelchair.
the lack of natural lighting within the dorms and rooms can really negatively impact the management of one's mental health and cause an increase in the severity one's symptoms.
the fact that there is no way to get fresh air or real air circulation going means that people will very easily pass colds and such to one another, those with respiratory issues like asthma, etc will have a really hard time, and in my opinion i feel like whole building smell bad a lot because there is no fresh air coming in
and for people with sensory sensitivities this whole place seems like it will a sensory overload nightmare
i just can not see how this at the very least is not a total violation of the ADA (americans with disabilities act)
ADA violations rely on no accommodations being given. Most college dorms aren’t fit for a wheelchair user or other conditions, but will have a small amount of units that are accessible. Those are given to students who provide medical documentation stating what they need (and then sometimes any left over are given to RAs as a perk fo being an RA). So if someone has a medical need for access to fresh air, as long as the building has a single room with that, they’re fine. Or UCSB can place them in a different dorm building. Unfortunately this abomination isn’t illegal.
I really think whoever helped Munger with that wanted to test out Pod Hotels, but California has building regulations because of the fires and the earthquakes so it literally makes no sense they'd get this approved unless the city is like "sure let's risk kids lives" this isn't Michigan it's California it's completely different in terms of natural disasters.
@@TheRaquelephant wow I did not know that. I mean I was looking at the plans and it looked to me like it was lacking accommodations and like what seemed to logical violations. Also the negative impact of thr students mental health feels like a violation to me.
But if none of that is actually protected or covered in the ADA then it just goes to show that the ADA needs updating and improving so that there are more protections in place.
because this building is aleady a nightmarish hellscape before taking in to account the needs of students with disabilities, neurodivergent students, and/or student with mental illnesses.
@@kgal1298 yeah every time I look at the plans I'm left wondering what governmental body on federal or state level would allow this to be built. It seems like it is violating multiple acts, ordinances, and safety rules. It is one giant hazard essentially as far as I can tell and I'm not like an architect or an expert in safety stuff.
I wonder if this was a Yale or Harvard would they pull a stunt like this? Where are the governmental bodies whose job it is to regulate these kinds of things? Also has any studies even been yet on what kind of environmental impact having this massive building being built would as well as the foot traffic going on?
Like how much in an increase noise or light pollution or regular pollution will there be? How will impact the surrounding neighborhood and will that be a negative one? And if they have done those studies what were the results, that should be made public.
This is just so baffling to me and it feels like there is a total lack of oversight and regulation and like they are willing to just put a bunch students' lives risk because profit.
Yea I am wheelchair-bound and I have mental struggles including depression and anxiety
I wouldn't live there if I had a choice...
And environments like that will literally just make everyone have cabin fever...
Its just terrible
as a student in the uk, this is absolutely horrific. I can't believe that this design is even given the time of day. granted, I am an art student so my uni is very aware of the physiological needs of students, but there is still a decent standard of student living here.
its almost as if architects go through YEARS of schooling before they're allowed to design anything
It’s because most American universities are not really schools, they’re businesses. They don’t see those who pay tuition as students, but clients.
I’ve watched so many documentaries about how devastating human crushes can happen when there’s only one available/known exit during a panic. Two exits are obviously not enough for this many people.
“If I wouldn’t say it to your face, I wouldn’t say it in a video” is a concept that everyone needs to adopt on the internet
It drives me insane that you are one of the first people i have seen that has said this. Thank you for having this philosophy
Those aren't dorms, they're crypts.
There's no way this space can be easily evacuated during a fire
That’s my exact concern. Without windows it’d be incredibly difficult if not impossible for firefighters to access trapped students or even know where they are .
I did grad school at U of M and lived in munger graduate residences for 3 years.
There were a total of 7 people including myself the layout was better than the one showing at 3:17 because when you walk into the suite you would have a very long hallway where all the rooms would be and then at the very end is where you would have the common space and so the rooms were relatively quiet since they were farther away from the common space.
I chose to live at munger because it's relatively cheap compared to everywhere else rent was $950 when I first moved in and I didn't need to worry about furniture and any utilities so I think it was a great deal and I really liked my time there however the downside was not having a window. My sleep cycle was definitely affected and it was hard to wake up every day even if I got 8+ hours of sleep because with no window you're literally waking up in pitch darkness. The window rooms are only reserved for people who obtained a doctors note for having some kind of condition lets say like claustrophobia or anxiety and for all the RAs. But even then less than 19% of all the rooms in munger has windows so the window rooms were pretty limited in the first place. Most people invest in a sunlamp to kind of mimic waking up with natural light but it's not the same.
I appreciate hearing this perspective. Even though the U of M Munger housing still seems… not ideal as far as overall space for 7 full-grown adults, it still seems a hell of a lot better than the student storage bins being proposed for UCSB. If you feel like answering, how much of a difference do you feel like the common area in the unit made in your experience with the U of M housing? Because the common area in those floor plans looks much more open than the proposed UCSB plan and more comfortable.
Not to say I think either is necessarily good. But I think it’s disgusting that the UCSB plan is being proposed as an “improved” version of where you stayed when the latter clearly seems to me to be better.
@@DeadMetaphors I'm not the person you replied to, but when I was in college I really didn't care about the common spaces at all. When I was in my dorm I was in my room, when I wasn't in my dorm (and not in class) I was going to club sport practices, activities, the library, meeting up for lunch/dinner, or hanging out at the student union.
The only times I ever went to the common areas were when we had mandatory residence hall meetings, or the first couple of weeks when the RAs would have icebreaker-type games set up for people in the dorms because nobody really had friends yet. At least for bigger schools, there are so many activity/interest-based groups on campus that hanging out with people you didn't have much in common with except for living in the same dorm wasn't really a thing.
@@DeadMetaphors I definitely think the UCSB proposed building looks really bad and those bedrooms look even worse than ours. But the common area at our Munger building was very large and I've never heard a single person complain about living space there, only complaints of lack of windows, so I would say it is suitable for seven people. Also it wasn't like all 7 of us were in the same room at the same time because everybody had different schedules and busy with our own work so it wasn't like people had time every single day to watch Netflix or play video games like undergrad students.
As for your question, I think the common area made a huge difference. There are a lot of international students that end up living in Munger and so you get to be roommates with a diverse group of people and I ended up making a lot of long-term friends just living in Munger. I think the pictures of munger are terrible at selling the place. Like at 16:12 that picture was taken before the building was finished like the coffee tables have a white marble top to them which was not present in the photo. Also the furniture layout in the photo is terrible and nobody kept it that way. We ended up putting the couch (not shown in the picture) and all the dark brown conference chairs facing the 85 inch flat screen TV and the dinner table and the chairs in front of where the smaller TV is. Since we did have a lot of space we actually hosted a decent amount of party / events for Michigan football games on Saturday, holiday themed parties, etc
950 a month to live with 7 other people??
$950 is way to much I also went to Michigan and graduated recently enough and paid $620 for off campus housing in a fairly large house with my own room quite close to campus. And that was the more expensive end.
I've lived in a window less room for about 2 years and holy shit that honestly made my depression so much worse. I can't imagine paying to live like that.
As someone who lived in the dorms all 4 years, I can say without a doubt that having natural light and fresh air is nessecary. Especially in the pandemic times where a student could be forced to Isolate in their dorm for up to 2 weeks.
The fact that some billionaire with no training has been given the leeway to design a building because it's his money is ridiculous.
Also, CNN ran an article a couple of days ago with a picture of the Michigan bedroom. 🤮
being forced to isolate here sounds like solitary confinement which is in humane anyway, no student would keep their sanity
As someone who needs personal space and privacy, living in that tiny space with 7 other people would be a nightmare. I don't even like having one roommate. I saw a video tour of one of his other buildings and the common area was so messy with everyones coffee makers, blenders, water bottles and other junk. And that one was twice as large for the same number of people.
This building is designed like a prison. Each house is a cell block and each room a cell, with a communal space in the center. This plan litterally fits the design of prison *blocks to a T
Edit for spelling
11:40 hi civil engineer here! The building pods off site part is modular engineering/construction and its not as concerning of a safety hazard as the reaction warrants lol but I totally get how insane that sounds as a way to build such a large dorm. It's not the most conventional construction method, especially for a project this large, but probably would help lessen the cost significantly with a (ridiculous) design that's this copy pasted. Modular design has a lot of benefits, but its really dependent on what's being built and in my professional opinion, this damn building should NOT be built smh
@ They didnt defend the design though, just the construction method.
Yeah, I'm an engineer too. Modular design can be helpful and has its uses. The pods wouldn't be structural and could simplify labor costs and quality control.
The lack of windows is concerning, but modular design isn't the problem here.
@ Did you even read their comment
No cost savings here, cost/bed of proposed Munger building is more than cost/bed of high rise dorms currently under construction @ UCLA
Modular design doesn't look like the problem here, at all. The module itself is crap, but you can totally do this with decent pods that actually allow for sunlight and ventilation, while providing an actual accomodation instead of a closet.
I mean, move the kitchen and the living/dining room to an innner corner of the module, the shared bathrooms to the other inner corner, and leave the outer half ot the module for the bedrooms. Mirror this design horizontally and vertically, and bam, you have a four pod/housing unit per floor blueprint, that you can build around a central hallway, and actually stack into a decent 10 floor building. You probably can't however, cram 8 students in there. More like 4.
Reminds me more of a prison then a dorm.
Norwegian prisons look similar but even they have WINDOWS.
@@snobook I can’t tell if you meant to type early or eerily, but at least some of their prisons (not maximum I’d assume) have windows 🥴
@@liesbethhodges5930 i just googled and were shoked.
Btw i meany eerily.
Prisons have windows
As someone who went to high school in a campus designed by a prison architect, even WE had windows. Albeit, not many, but still. You need at least SOME natural lighting in a school, but especially in a living space. This is a terrible design!
Sorry, was that ONE fridge? For 8 people!? My dorm had 2 for 6 people. And that still wasn't enough.
I can't imaging sharing a single fridge with more than 3 other people (4 total). Every dorm I was ever in had 1 fridge for four people, and it was almost always full.
What I love is at a university with magnificent views and perfect year-round weather, you build a dorm with no enjoyment of it.
If they actually go through with building these dystopian prison cells, I feel like one of the agreements should be that Munger HAS to live in one of these closet "bedrooms" for at LEAST a full semester without any access to the billionaire lifestyle. Basically live like a broke college student. Obviously that won't happen.
However, what I'm concerned the most about, isn't that there doesn't seem to be many fire exits, natural light, or ventilation, but how despite lacking things that HAVE to be up to code, is that there's a chance he could brute force this into existence if the college agrees. He could potentially pay off people to allow for a building that actively dangers human life to be built.
Also could someone have breathing problems if there isn't any ventilation in the bedrooms?
The bedrooms would, presumably, have vents for heating and air, but given how expensive it'd be to heat and cool the entire building I'd be surprised if the ventilation was any good at all
bro 8 people sharing 1 bathroom and shower?😭those mornings are gonna be ROUGH
edit: wait maybe there's 2?? A communal bathroom with stalls would still be WAYYY more efficient for this many people living together imo
1 small fridge though. Fridge politics is hard enough with 4 people. I guess mini-fridges everywhere?
@@grae_n dear god that too jfc--assuming they can even GET a mini-fridge in those bedrooms
honestly, I live with only my sister, and just the two of us trying to use a single bathroom is an issue, couldn’t imagine having only two for eight
@@grae_n lol fr!! i had a small ass fridge in my dorm for 4 people. we all had to get mini fridges lol
@@nellikorpi7937 agreed, but also the issue of 2 people showering will also technically occupy the toilets as well because of how its designed. Only 2 people can be in the bathroom at a time, compared to a possible 4, had they just made a communal bathroom with stalls
I'm getting a master's in mechanical engineering, and have one already in sustainable design from an architectural school, and the words "no natural light or ventilation" caused me to pause the video and go into a deep existential crisis. Building codes vary from state to state, but there's no way this is legitimately passing any kind of code for egress/outside air conditioning- especially with the quarantine requirements schools need to have for at least the next few years. These kids are going to have COVID and Legionnaire's at the same time, on top of the mental toll of such a poorly designed living space. ...Admittedly, my campus in DC used literal single-wide trailers on a quad to address campus housing shortages until they were banned within city limits. *Prefab/modular construction is getting pretty common though.
Imagine not providing the rooms a window? Imagine living there knowing it was approved for construction by a building official. At least it doesn't exist yet, but if it had gone under the internet's radar and they just paid off the official to approve of their building even though it is not up to code, I don't even wanna imagine that monstrosity. Not only is the lack of windows harmful to the students' physical and mental well-being (i.e. not having ample natural light and fresh air for ventilation reasons), this is also just a fire hazard waiting to happen. Even just considering that maybe flames won't spread to a certain area, smoke definitely will. Imagine dying of smoke inhalation, not of the actual fire itself. All because your room did not have windows. This is why you hire at least an engineer that can do the bare minimum of safety regulations.
Yeah and like how tf are they going to handle air circulation? Air circulation/ventilation takes up a HUGE amount of space in office buildings with windows in every room, it would have to be massive here
The dorms I lived in back in college had a center courtyard so that every bedroom had a window. The living/kitchenette/bathroom spaces were stacked along the interior hallways, and the bedrooms on the perimeter so that every bedroom had a window either looking outward or into the (huge) courtyard. The windows didn't open because freshmen are idiots who would have thrown things out them or tried to climb out them, so they didn't help with fresh air but it was still a good safety thing (i.e. firemen could break the window and get people out in case of emergency).
@@maybeyourbaby6486 yep even vents take up a huge amount of space, not to mention that if they opt for exposed vents due to lack of space, that place definitely is not going to look welcoming or good to live in. idk why they wanna design it like this, it's weird and costs more in the long run compared to just getting windows for every room.
@@mandabee8721the first thing people learn in architecture and planning is to put windows in every room in a residential space, except for maybe the storage. even fixed windows that do not open still provide something, like being able to look at something that is not the wall. aside from safety reasons like you said, firemen being able to break windows for people to get out of, it's just overall important to not feel so enclosed by walls like it's an isolation cell.
There's no way ventilation doesn't fail here, people in the center of the tesseract will die of suffocating and no windows is literally not legal, fire code requires multiple exit points
Something's up: This project's using $1.5B to build 1.68M square feet of space. That's almost $900/square foot. A single-family home runs $1100-150/square foot. Multiunit housing like dorms should be cheaper- especially if (like with this project) it uses prefabricated modules. The amenities could explain maybe doubling or tripling the cost per square foot, but not 9x the cost.
So........where the shit is all the money going?
And there's no way a professional investor like Munger wouldn't notice the $/square foot is way too high. That's the first thing he'd look at. So........yeah this isn't just a fire trap, it's a really obvious con. IMHO.
Single family homes are light framed lumber. and 11 story building in an earthquake zone is going to be steel and rigorously reinforced. High ventilation and plumbing requirements, a higher humber of internal walls...
The typical dorm is 300-350/sq ft, but the tend towards 3-4 story structures and 2 person rooms, with a single large bathroom per floor - and no kitchen space.
It's kind of interesting to see all those upscale projects that seem to try to replicate what those of us who grew up in the former Soviet Union would recognize as коммуналки (communal apartments)
Makes it even funnier and quite ironic to read this knowing the USA government tries to make people believe what is gonna turn their country into the worst "communist hellscape" their fever dreams cound conjure up is a public health system.
Ive seen those. To be honest, if they were cheap, and let me save money for a house.... Id probably be down with it. Live in a small room for 3 years to set me up for life, cool. My problem, is they're marketed as "luxury" and are what apartments used to cost.
Yeah, it's a building that's trying to take advantage of young students that don't yet know this building would be horrible.
I never really took note of the fact that all the dorms at my university have windows, but I can say for a fact if I wasn't able to look outside during my time living there I would have lost my shit. Also not sure how are they going to properly ventilate all the stoves they plan on having. If one person burns their popcorn it's going to smell terrible 5ever
Someone on Twitter honestly said if there *was* a fire, they could just easily locate one of the available windows and climb out - wow! If only all those who died in fires due to inept building codes knew leaving was an option! Darn it!
Everyone throughout history who was stampeded on, burned up, or suffocated in fire code hellscapes are rolling in their graves. I think of the nightclub fires in recent decades, the Shirtwaist Factory fire, and numerous others that taught us so much.
But the worst part is that while the knowledge IS out there and easily accessible - people would still gladly forfeit that wisdom for convenience and cost cutting. It will be unfortunate if we slip back into allowing slack building standards to save space, time, and money.
It's not the fire - it's the smoke. Reminds me of the interior of the Scandinavian Star. The ship burned. People were found dead in their cabins and clumped in the hallways - not from the fire, but from smoke inhalation. This building is a death trap.
Thats why I say (in cases like this) tragedies are often lessons.
Yes bcz it totally make sense that around 4,500 persons can take turns to exit the building through the only few windows and wait calmly meanwhile the whole building is on fire.
"I'm rich, now make this building cause I say so" Also this is an architecture channel now
I'm here for it
So I was an RA for several years and have lived in 6 different types of dorms over the course of my degree. I have some opinions on this building. Honestly, some of the things you mentioned are pretty standard across dorm living. It is pretty definitionally supposed to be communal living, that's what dorms are. If you're not a person who does well living communally then typical dorms might not be a good living situation for you and you might need to seek out differently designed dorms/apartments that accommodate how you are able to live. That said, the plans for this building are a nightmare. The thought of working as an RA in that building horrifies me. First of all, if you think 8 full time staff members is enough to address the needs of 4500 students, you need help. You would ideally want around double that to have a ratio that allows the hall directors to actually engage with and know students, which is essential to dorm living. And that also doesn't account for non-full time workers like Housing and Facilities Ambassadors, and of course, RAs (Resident Assistants) who are the backbone of any dorm system and the only reason communal living like dorms do is possible. When communities, especially ones made up of young people just figuring out how to live and function independently, are as close as dorm living is, you CANNOT just let people loose with no supervision or structure. An RA teaches conflict resolution, addresses mental health crises, and makes sure that everyone in their wing/hall is safe and successful, they are the ONLY way that living in a dorm is a sustainable way of living for most people. You would need around 100 RA'S to staff a building like that effectively, and I didn't see any kind of accommodations for RA's built into those plans.
Munger designed a Hong Kong housing crisis for the UCSB student. HK with everything that is cool and luxurious, but worse housing for the lowest tier of their citizen. They live on shared apartment where the unit is further compartmentalized into smaller unit, thus called coffin houses.
Charlie Munger looks and sounds like an old shrivelled billionaire named Charlie Munger.
this is literally what i would build in the sims when i was 10
As an HVAC engineer, while there are definitely psychological concerns about no windows, there are code minimums that require a certain amount of fresh air per occupant be introduced into the air. I'm not saying this is a great design, but it would be totally illegal for them to just be recirculating air.
Prefabricated units are not uncommon nowadays. Maybe do a little research on that. The pods are probably not structurally integral, but would be inserted once the "shell space" of the building was built, so they would really be providing finishes.
This is still a hell scape building, but I wanted to contribute that information.
I for one appreciate the insight on the pods, from an outsider perspective the Lego analogy was really close to what I thought when I heard about the pods
Thank you for bringing up the information on pre-fabricated buildings! My mother is a civil engineer and I’ve heard about pre-fab buildings for a long time, they do it a lot for sheds and houses now as far as I understand
It being illegal doesn't mean that's not how he designed it. he's not an architect, he doesn't know the ins and outs of building safety codes. I can only hope this just means the building plans haven't been through a legal review yet.
That's what I've been thinking. My county, at least, has very strict regulations on housing- even cohabitation. Rooms must meet a certain size, there is a limit of how many people can live in a certain amount of space, and safety is a massive concern. It's so strict here that it limits the building of 'tinyhouses' and homeless shack housing- but for good reason. Scientifically, our standards are the bare minimum for safety and mental+physical health.
Just each of these pods would be very much illegal here, let alone the building itself.
My guess is that they haven't yet run this by the city planning office.
@@TheGuindo true, he's not an architect, but architects don't design HVAC systems. A mechanical engineer who is registered as a Professional Engineer in the project's state has to seal drawings (blueprints) in order to apply for a permit. There are major legal obligations to sealing a set of drawings. No engineer would put their seal on a system without outside air. They would be at least sued, and possibly have their registration taken away, which is a big deal.
You're correct that this hasn't passed design review yet, and I think that's why there's so much publicity about the project right now.
I'd be happy to answer questions about the design review process if you want to know more.
I love how "East Exit" is listed under amenities. Because, you know, West Exit? Every building has _that_
I’m surprised no one had pointed out was this basically is a floor plan for. It’s a county jail. Several cell blocks, within them multiple “pods”, all consisting of multiple cells(with legitimate cell dimensions and layouts), and a dayroom in each pod. But atleast in county jail there was a blurry window slit in the cell and a toilet and sink.
Nobody who hasn’t lived in dorms should play any role in designing them. Like imo, communal spaces are good for students to collaborate and stuff but you HAVE to have some basic expectations of privacy. This entire building is set up in such a way that everyone is gonna know your business - when you come and go, who you’re hanging out with, etc. Sharing a dorm with 8 people where you *all* have shared amenities is going to be a hellworld too - like, I went to boarding school and our houses had these communal kitchens and bathrooms and stuff, and they were constantly being shut down bc people made messes of them.
Common areas for meeting, working together, or socializing? Sure! Great! Almost every campus would benefit from having more of these, especially in buildings housing the equivalent of a small town. But you’ve got to have some privacy, and imo, that should absolutely include in-unit laundry. Even if it was shared with a couple roommates that’s still leagues better than shared laundry.
I will BET like so much money that the investor guy owns at least a substantial part of the pod-producing company, which is why he’s so adamant his design will be used: he’ll probably make more money than he spends
Munger really looked at tenements and said "yeah, I can do worse", and did, the madlad
some of my friends lived in a big fancy dorm like this in their first year of uni ( 'movie room' communal spaces, fancy lobby, etc etc) and they all got depressed because of how small and shitty the actual rooms were. they'd complain about noise and yeah, I'm pretty sure Having A Window was one of the only things keeping them sane. this is inhumane lol
I lived in the largest dorm residence in Canada - over 1800 beds, designed by a dude who built a prison, and is notorious for its high suicide rate. That place was a 5 star resort compared to this, based solely on the fact that it had at least one window in every room. Thinking that people don't need windows and natural light is psychopathic.
As a current college student, this plan would honestly be fine if each 8 person unit was a full floor of the building so every room had a window
something that wasnt mentioned that im concerned about is it earthquake proof building? just because the design worked in michigan, doesnt mean its gonna work in a completely different environment. the fact that the main architect resigned for safety concerns gives teh impression that they are not going to prioritise earthquake safety. like im no architect or construction worker but the proposal is to build off site and then assembled on site makes me think its not gonna have enough structure reinforcement
Lol I go to UCSB and there's literally a protest going on right as I type this. The construction bus loud and annoying, they cut off a bike path past the library, which is annoying as fuck. I've seen normal dorm rooms with FOUR people stuck in them, when even three is a stretch. Anyway we got a survey from the school asking how we felt about this godforsaken building. I'm sure you can guess how I answered.
Hi fellow Gaucho! I went to UCSB years ago and I'm curious, where the heck is this being built?! And thanks for protesting this madness. It looks insane.
@@raquels. Right next to the library, and kind of by the Psych building
In Korea we have a similar type of windowless residence called Goshiwon, and I can assure you, this dorm is just a glorified version of what I experienced there.
My undergrad dorms were literally originally meant to be a prison and they were more livable. This project haunts me.
Im a freshman who is living in a “cluster” style dorm hall and my buildings setup is a lot better than that mess. All the students get windows(views vary) and we have space for a desk, bed (optional lofted) and a decently big closet. And thats for one person the same thing is duplicated for a “roommate” who you share a bathroom and mini fridge with. We each get our own sinks and share a shower and toilet. Multiplay this setup by 6 and you have 12 people living in a cluster. The rooms are all surrounding the common area (tv, microwaves, couches and some places to eat) All i am trying to say is that a building in this style can be made humanly. So like its not impossible for this to be made into a good residence hall, but i really doubt that it will be considering millionaires are involved
If they're willing to cut down from 8 people per house to 4 (maybe 5?) and look into having windows, yes, you can flip the blueprint into something humane. You'll most likely have to scrap the current plans, so I'd say: just start over.
Say you give that same living area to 4 people instead of 8.
You'd have 4 people per appartment. 8 appartments per house (as shown) would mean 32 people per house, and so 256 people per floor (assuming we're keeping the 8 houses per floor model).
Build this in a 6 floors building (say 5 of living accomodations, plus one for common ammenities - study rooms, cafeterias, grab & go, a work out space of some sort). You'd have 1280 people living in a single building, which is still massive.
Build 4 of these things and you'd have 5120 people living in these dorms. You'd need a lot more land. So yes, we can build something like this and yet keep it humane. The problem is: the people in charge of the money don't give two figs about student well-being. If they can cram 4500 students into a dorm and keep squeezing them for money for decades after, they will.
Nah the whole thing is trying to make sense but it doesn’t. In the first accommodation I lived in the uk the flats were 10 en-suite rooms sharing a full kithen, which is pretty standard for all accommodations in the uk. I’ve never understood how you can live without a kitchen.
These promotion pictures actually make it look kinda nice and then you look at the floor plan and it’s just a huge chaos and Cluster
As a college student, if this was my dorm, I would want to throw myself beneath a bus even more than I already do now. That community living space is also so unnecessarily large compared to the tiny little bedrooms. If my room did not have a window I would not have made it this far in life.
Listen, I suffered through sharing a nine-foot-wide space with someone else in a stuffy tiny dorm room for a whole year, but at least I had a WINDOW. I can't decide whether the ability to close a door behind me and be Alone In My Own Room would be worth this building's torture. With a megacomplex like that, you'd never be truly alone - and that does TERRIBLE things to your mental health.
Rumor has it that one of my university's dorms was designed by a prison architect. It was all concrete (including the actual dorm rooms), intimidatingly large, and with a central courtyard.
when this came out, my coworkers at an architectural engineering company had such a good time roasting it
Well this is perfectly timed given that RIT hasn’t turned my dorm power back on yet
Howdy, fellow RITer! Which dorm are you in?
@@jadajefferson2492 Baker C
@@smoov22_sonic ooh, I'm in Gibson
RIT alumni here, I saw the email go out about the power. I hope you all get it back soon!
Off-campus here, seen the emails and that sounds like a nightmare. I hope you guys aren’t too cold.
Amanda there is a podcast called ‘Well There’s Your Problem’ that recently did an episode about this ‘building’ that goes into a good amount of detail amount the project and its history from the perspective of engineers that I think you would appreciate
Where can you find that podcast?
What I find most funny is the 8 person dining table monopolizing the space….like all 8 occupants will eat at the same time
I Showed this building to my dad and my brother. My dad used to study architecture but ended up becoming a builder and my brother is an electrician. Both of their first respons was. " Is that even legal?" and "Do America not have fire safety laws??"